Preface

THE ungentle laws and customs touched upon in this tale are
historical, and the episodes which are used to illustrate them
are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and
customs existed in England in the sixth century; no, it is only
pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and
other civilizations of far later times, it is safe to consider that
it is no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to have
been in practice in that day also. One is quite justified in
inferring that whatever one of these laws or customs was
lacking in that remote time, its place was competently filled
by a worse one.

The question as to whether there is such a thing as divine

right of kings is not settled in this book. It was found too
difficult. That the executive head of a nation should be a
person of lofty character and extraordinary ability, was
manifest and indisputable; that none but the Deity could
select that head unerringly, was also manifest and
indisputable; that the Deity ought to make that selection,
then, was likewise manifest and indisputable; consequently,
that He does make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable
deduction. I mean, until the author of this book encountered
the Pompadour, and Lady Castlemaine, and some other
executive heads of that kind; these were found so difficult to
work into the scheme, that it was judged better to take the
other tack in this book (which must be issued this fall), and
then go into training and settle the question in another book.
It is, of course, a thing which ought to be settled, and I am
not going to have anything particular to do next winter
anyway.
Mark Twain
A Word of Explanation

T was in Warwick Castle that I came across

the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He
attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his
marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness
of his company—for he did all the talking. We fell together, as
modest people will, in the tail of the herd that was being
shown through, and he at once began to say things which
interested me. As he talked along, softly, pleasantly,
flowingly, he seemed to drift away imperceptibly out of this
world and time, and into some remote era and old forgotten
country; and so he gradually wove such a spell about me
that I seemed to move among the specters and shadows and
dust and mold of a gray antiquity, holding speech with a relic
of it! Exactly as I would speak of my nearest personal friends
or enemies, or my most familiar neighbors, he spoke of Sir
Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir
Galahad, and all the other great names of the Table Round—
and how old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry and
musty and ancient he came to look as he went on! Presently
he turned to me and said, just as one might speak of the
weather, or any other common matter—

“You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about

transposition of epochs—and bodies?”

I said I had not heard of it. He was so little interested—just

as when people speak of the weather—that he did not notice
whether I made him any answer or not. There was half a
moment of silence, immediately interrupted by the droning
voice of the salaried cicerone:

“Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King

Arthur and the Round Table; said to have belonged to the
knight Sir Sagramor le Desirous; observe the round hole
through the chain-mail in the left breast; can’t be accounted
for; supposed to have been done with a bullet since
invention of firearms—perhaps maliciously by Cromwell’s
soldiers.”

My acquaintance smiled—not a modern smile, but one that

must have gone out of general use many, many centuries
ago—and muttered apparently to himself:

“Wit ye well, I saw it done.” Then, after a pause, added: “I

did it myself.”

By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise of this

remark, he was gone.
All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick Arms,
steeped in a dream of the olden time, while the rain beat
upon the windows, and the wind roared about the eaves and
corners. From time to time I dipped into old Sir Thomas
Malory’s enchanting book, and fed at its rich feast of
prodigies and adventures, breathed in the fragrance of its
obsolete names, and dreamed again. Midnight being come at
length, I read another tale, for a nightcap—this which here
follows, to wit:
How Sir Launcelot Slew Two Giants,
and Made a Castle Free
Anon withal came there upon him two great giants, well
armed, all save the heads, with two horrible clubs in their
hands. Sir Launcelot put his shield afore him, and put the
stroke away of the one giant, and with his sword he clave his
head asunder. When his fellow saw that, he ran away as he
were wood [* demented], for fear of the horrible strokes,
and Sir Launcelot after him with all his might, and smote him
on the shoulder, and clave him to the middle. Then Sir
Launcelot went into the hall, and there came afore him three
score ladies and damsels, and all kneeled unto him, and
thanked God and him of their deliverance. For, sir, said they,
the most part of us have been here this seven year their
prisoners, and we have worked all manner of silk works for
our meat, and we are all great gentle-women born, and
blessed be the time, knight, that ever thou wert born;for
thou hast done the most worship that ever did knight in the
world, that will we bear record, and we all pray you to tell us
your name, that we may tell our friends who delivered us out
of prison. Fair damsels, he said, my name is Sir Launcelot du
Lake. And so he departed from them and betaught them unto
God. And then he mounted upon his horse, and rode into
many strange and wild countries, and through many waters
and valleys, and evil was he lodged. And at the last by
fortune him happened against a night to come to a fair
courtilage, and therein he found an old gentle-woman that
lodged him with a good-will, and there he had good cheer for
him and his horse. And when time was, his host brought him
into a fair garret over the gate to his bed. There Sir
Launcelot unarmed him, and set his harness by him, and
went to bed, and anon he fell on sleep. So, soon after there
came one on horseback, and knocked at the gate in great
haste. And when Sir Launcelot heard this he rose up, and
looked out at the window, and saw by the moonlight three
knights come riding after that one man, and all three lashed
on him at once with swords, and that one knight turned on
them knightly again and defended him. Truly, said Sir
Launcelot, yonder one knight shall I help, for it were shame
for me to see three knights on one, and if he be slain I am
partner of his death. And therewith he took his harness and
went out at a window by a sheet down to the four knights,
and then Sir Launcelot said on high, Turn you knights unto
me, and leave your fighting with that knight. And then they
all three left Sir Kay, and turned unto Sir Launcelot, and
there began great battle, for they alight all three, and strake
many strokes at Sir Launcelot, and assailed him on every
side. Then Sir Kay dressed him for to have holpen Sir
Launcelot. Nay, sir, said he, I will none of your help,
therefore as ye will have my help let me alone with them. Sir
Kay for the pleasure of the knight suffered him for to do his
will, and so stood aside. And then anon within six strokes Sir
Launcelot had stricken them to the earth.

And then they all three cried, Sir Knight, we yield us unto
you as man of might matchless. As to that, said Sir
Launcelot, I will not take your yielding unto me, but so that
ye yield you unto Sir Kay the seneschal, on that covenant I
will save your lives and else not. Fair knight, said they, that
were we loath to do; for as for Sir Kay we chased him hither,
and had overcome him had ye not been; therefore, to yield
us unto him it were no reason. Well, as to that, said Sir
Launcelot, advise you well, for ye may choose whether ye
will die or live, for an ye be yielden, it shall be unto Sir Kay.
Fair knight, then they said, in saving our lives we will do as
thou commandest us. Then shall ye, said Sir Launcelot, on
Whitsunday next coming go unto the court of King Arthur,
and there shall ye yield you unto Queen Guenever, and put
you all three in her grace and mercy, and say that Sir Kay
sent you thither to be her prisoners. On the morn Sir
Launcelot arose early, and left Sir Kay sleeping; and Sir
Launcelot took Sir Kay’s armor and his shield and armed him,
and so he went to the stable and took his horse, and took his
leave of his host, and so he departed. Then soon after arose
Sir Kay and missed Sir Launcelot; and then he espied that he
had his armor and his horse. Now by my faith I know well
that he will grieve some of the court of King Arthur; for on
him knights will be bold, and deem that it is I, and that will
beguile them; and because of his armor and shield I am sure
I shall ride in peace. And then soon after departed Sir Kay,
and thanked his host.

As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and
my stranger came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and
made him welcome. I also comforted him with a hot Scotch
whisky; gave him another one; then still another—hoping
always for his story. After a fourth persuader, he drifted into
it himself, in a quite simple and natural way:
The Stranger’s History
I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the
State of Connecticut—anyway, just over the river, in the
country. So I am a Yankee of the Yankees—and practical;
yes, and nearly barren of sentiment, I suppose—or poetry, in
other words. My father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a
horse doctor, and I was both, along at first. Then I went over
to the great arms factory and learned my real trade; learned
all there was to it; learned to make everything: guns,
revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all sorts of labor-saving
machinery. Why, I could make anything a body wanted—
anything in the world, it didn’t make any difference what;
and if there wasn’t any quick new-fangled way to make a
thing, I could invent one—and do it as easy as rolling off a
log. I became head superintendent; had a couple of thousand
men under me.

Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight—that goes

without saying. With a couple of thousand rough men under
one, one has plenty of that sort of amusement. I had,
anyway. At last I met my match, and I got my dose. It was
during a misunderstanding conducted with crowbars with a
fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher
alongside the head that made everything crack, and seemed
to spring every joint in my skull and made it overlap its
neighbor. Then the world went out in darkness, and I didn’t
feel anything more, and didn’t know anything at all—at least
for a while.
When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak tree, on
the grass, with a whole beautiful and broad country
landscape all to myself—nearly. Not entirely; for there was a
fellow on a horse, looking down at me—a fellow fresh out of
a picture-book. He was in old-time iron armor from head to
heel, with a helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with
slits in it; and he had a shield, and a sword, and a prodigious
spear; and his horse had armor on, too, and a steel horn
projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous red and green
silk trappings that hung down all around him like a bedquilt,
nearly to the ground.
“Fair sir, will ye just?” said this fellow.

“Will I which?”

“Will ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or for—”

“What are you giving me?” I said. “Get along back to your
circus, or I’ll report you.”

Now what does this man do but fall back a couple of hundred
yards and then come rushing at me as hard as he could tear,
with his nail-keg bent down nearly to his horse’s neck and
his long spear pointed straight ahead. I saw he meant
business, so I was up the tree when he arrived.

He allowed that I was his property, the captive of his spear.

There was argument on his side—and the bulk of the
advantage—so I judged it best to humor him. We fixed up an
agreement whereby I was to go with him and he was not to
hurt me. I came down, and we started away, I walking by the
side of his horse. We marched comfortably along, through
glades and over brooks which I could not remember to have
seen before—which puzzled me and made me wonder—and
yet we did not come to any circus or sign of a circus. So I
gave up the idea of a circus, and concluded he was from an
asylum. But we never came to an asylum—so I was up a
stump, as you may say. I asked him how far we were from
Hartford. He said he had never heard of the place; which I
took to be a lie, but allowed it to go at that. At the end of an
hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a
winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress,
with towers and turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a
picture.

“Bridgeport?” said I, pointing.

“Camelot,” said he.

My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness. He caught

himself nodding, now, and smiled one of those pathetic,
obsolete smiles of his, and said:

“I find I can’t go on; but come with me, I’ve got it all written
out, and you can read it if you like.”

In his chamber, he said: “First, I kept a journal; then by and

by, after years, I took the journal and turned it into a book.
How long ago that was!”

He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the place

where I should begin:

“Begin here—I’ve already told you what goes before.” He was

steeped in drowsiness by this time. As I went out at his door
I heard him murmur sleepily: “Give you good den, fair sir.”
I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure. The first
part of it—the great bulk of it—was parchment, and yellow
with age. I scanned a leaf particularly and saw that it was a
palimpsest. Under the old dim writing of the Yankee historian
appeared traces of a penmanship which was older and
dimmer still—Latin words and sentences: fragments from old
monkish legends, evidently. I turned to the place indicated
by my stranger and began to read—as follows:
The Tale of the Lost Land
 Chapter I. Camelot
“CAMELOT—Camelot,” said I to myself. “I don’t seem to
remember hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely.”

It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a

dream, and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was full of the
smell of flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the
twittering of birds, and there were no people, no wagons,
there was no stir of life, nothing going on. The road was
mainly a winding path with hoof-prints in it, and now and
then a faint trace of wheels on either side in the grass—
wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one’s hand.

Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a

cataract of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders,
came along. Around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red
poppies. It was as sweet an outfit as ever I saw, what there
was of it. She walked indolently along, with a mind at rest,
its peace reflected in her innocent face. The circus man paid
no attention to her; didn’t even seem to see her. And she—
she was no more startled at his fantastic make-up than if she
was used to his like every day of her life. She was going by
as indifferently as she might have gone by a couple of cows;
but when she happened to notice me, THEN there was a
change! Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone;
her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and
timorously, she was the picture of astonished curiosity
touched with fear. And there she stood gazing, in a sort of
stupefied fascination, till we turned a corner of the wood and
were lost to her view. That she should be startled at me
instead of at the other man, was too many for me; I couldn’t
make head or tail of it . And that she should seem to
consider me a spectacle, and totally overlook her own merits
in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a display of
magnanimity, too, that was surprising in one so young. There
was food for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream.

As we approached the town, signs of life began to appear. At

intervals we passed a wretched cabin, with a thatched roof,
and about it small fields and garden patches in an indifferent
state of cultivation. There were people, too; brawny men,
with long, coarse, uncombed hair that hung down over their
faces and made them look like animals. They and the
women, as a rule, wore a coarse tow-linen robe that came
well below the knee, and a rude sort of sandal, and many
wore an iron collar. The small boys and girls were always
naked; but nobody seemed to know it. All of these people
stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts and fetched
out their families to gape at me; but nobody ever noticed
that other fellow, except to make him humble salutation and
get no response for their pains.

In the town were some substantial windowless houses of

stone scattered among a wilderness of thatched cabins; the
streets were mere crooked alleys, and unpaved; troops of
dogs and nude children played in the sun and made life and
noise; hogs roamed and rooted contentedly about, and one
of them lay in a reeking wallow in the middle of the main
thoroughfare and suckled her family. Presently there was a
distant blare of military music; it came nearer, still nearer,
and soon a noble cavalcade wound into view, glorious with
plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners and
rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spearheads; and
through the muck and swine, and naked brats, and joyous
dogs, and shabby huts, it took its gallant way, and in its wake
we followed. Followed through one winding alley and then
another,—and climbing, always climbing—till at last we
gained the breezy height where the huge castle stood. There
was an exchange of bugle blasts; then a parley from the
walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and morion, marched
back and forth with halberd at shoulder under flapping
banners with the rude figure of a dragon displayed upon
them; and then the great gates were flung open, the
drawbridge was lowered, and the head of the cavalcade
swept forward under the frowning arches; and we, following,
soon found ourselves in a great paved court, with towers and
turrets stretching up into the blue air on all the four sides;
and all about us the dismount was going on, and much
greeting and ceremony, and running to and fro, and a gay
display of moving and intermingling colors, and an altogether
pleasant stir and noise and confusion.
Chapter II. King Arthur’s Court
THE moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately and
touched an ancient common looking man on the shoulder
and said, in an insinuating, confidential way:

“Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the asylum, or

are you just on a visit or something like that?”

He looked me over stupidly, and said:

“Marry, fair sir, me seemeth—”

“That will do,” I said; “I reckon you are a patient.”

I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time keeping an

eye out for any chance passenger in his right mind that
might come along and give me some light. I judged I had
found one, presently; so I drew him aside and said in his ear:

“If I could see the head keeper a minute—only just a minute

—”

“Prithee do not let me.”

“Let you what?”

“Hinder me, then, if the word please thee better. Then he

went on to say he was an under-cook and could not stop to
gossip, though he would like it another time; for it would
comfort his very liver to know where I got my clothes. As he
started away he pointed and said yonder was one who was
idle enough for my purpose, and was seeking me besides, no
doubt. This was an airy slim boy in shrimp-colored tights that
made him look like a forked carrot, the rest of his gear was
blue silk and dainty laces and ruffles; and he had long yellow
curls, and wore a plumed pink satin cap tilted complacently
over his ear. By his look, he was good-natured; by his gait,
he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enough to
frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling and
impudent curiosity; said he had come for me, and informed
me that he was a page.

“Go ‘long,” I said; “you ain’t more than a paragraph.”

It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never

phazed him; he didn’t appear to know he was hurt. He began
to talk and laugh, in happy, thoughtless, boyish fashion, as
we walked along, and made himself old friends with me at
once; asked me all sorts of questions about myself and about
my clothes, but never waited for an answer—always
chattered straight ahead, as if he didn’t know he had asked a
question and wasn’t expecting any reply, until at last he
happened to mention that he was born in the beginning of
the year 513.

It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said, a
little faintly:

“Maybe I didn’t hear you just right. Say it again—and say it

slow. What year was it?”

“513.”

“513! You don’t look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger and

friendless; be honest and honorable with me. Are you in your
right mind?”

He said he was.

“Are these other people in their right minds?”

He said they were.

“And this isn’t an asylum? I mean, it isn’t a place where they

cure crazy people?”

He said it wasn’t.

“Well, then,” I said, “either I am a lunatic, or something just

as awful has happened. Now tell me, honest and true, where
am I?”

“In King Arthur’s Court.”

I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way home, and
then said:

“And according to your notions, what year is it now?”

“528—nineteenth of June.”

I felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered: “I shall

never see my friends again—never, never again. They will
not be born for more than thirteen hundred years yet.”

I seemed to believe the boy, I didn’t know why. Something in

me seemed to believe him—my consciousness, as you may
say; but my reason didn’t. My reason straightway began to
clamor; that was natural. I didn’t know how to go about
satisfying it, because I knew that the testimony of men
wouldn’t serve—my reason would say they were lunatics, and
throw out their evidence. But all of a sudden I stumbled on
the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the only total eclipse
of the sun in the first half of the sixth century occurred on
the 21st of June, A. D. 528, O.S., and began at 3 minutes
after 12 noon. I also knew that no total eclipse of the sun
was due in what to ME was the present year—i.e., 1879. So,
if I could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the
heart out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then find out
for certain whether this boy was telling me the truth or not.

Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved

this whole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day
and hour should come, in order that I might turn all my
attention to the circumstances of the present moment, and
be alert and ready to make the most out of them that could
be made. One thing at a time, is my motto—and just play
that thing for all it is worth, even if it’s only two pair and a
jack. I made up my mind to two things: if it was still the
nineteenth century and I was among lunatics and couldn’t
get away, I would presently boss that asylum or know the
reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really the sixth
century, all right, I didn’t want any softer thing: I would boss
the whole country inside of three months; for I judged I
would have the start of the best-educated man in the
kingdom by a matter of thirteen hundred years and upward.
I’m not a man to waste time after my mind’s made up and
there’s work on hand; so I said to the page:

“Now, Clarence, my boy—if that might happen to be your

name—I’ll get you to post me up a little if you don’t mind.
What is the name of that apparition that brought me here?”

“My master and thine? That is the good knight and great lord
Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to our liege the king.”

“Very good; go on, tell me everything.”

He made a long story of it; but the part that had immediate
interest for me was this: He said I was Sir Kay’s prisoner, and
that in the due course of custom I would be flung into a
dungeon and left there on scant commons until my friends
ransomed me—unless I chanced to rot, first. I saw that the
last chance had the best show, but I didn’t waste any bother
about that; time was too precious. The page said, further,
that dinner was about ended in the great hall by this time,
and that as soon as the sociability and the heavy drinking
should begin, Sir Kay would have me in and exhibit me
before King Arthur and his illustrious knights seated at the
Table Round, and would brag about his exploit in capturing
me, and would probably exaggerate the facts a little, but it
wouldn’t be good form for me to correct him, and not over
safe, either; and when I was done being exhibited, then ho
for the dungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come
and see me every now and then, and cheer me up, and help
me get word to my friends.

Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn’t do less;

and about this time a lackey came to say I was wanted; so
Clarence led me in and took me off to one side and sat down
by me.

Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interesting. It

was an immense place, and rather naked—yes, and full of
loud contrasts. It was very, very lofty; so lofty that the
banners depending from the arched beams and girders away
up there floated in a sort of twilight; there was a stone-railed
gallery at each end, high up, with musicians in the one, and
women, clothed in stunning colors, in the other. The floor
was of big stone flags laid in black and white squares, rather
battered by age and use, and needing repair. As to ornament,
there wasn’t any, strictly speaking; though on the walls hung
some huge tapestries which were probably taxed as works of
art; battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like those
which children cut out of paper or create in gingerbread;
with men on them in scale armor whose scales are
represented by round holes—so that the man’s coat looks as
if it had been done with a biscuit-punch. There was a
fireplace big enough to camp in; and its projecting sides and
hood, of carved and pillared stonework, had the look of a
cathedral door. Along the walls stood men-at-arms, in
breastplate and morion, with halberds for their only weapon
—rigid as statues; and that is what they looked like.

In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was

an oaken table which they called the Table Round. It was as
large as a circus ring; and around it sat a great company of
men dressed in such various and splendid colors that it hurt
one’s eyes to look at them. They wore their plumed hats,
right along, except that whenever one addressed himself
directly to the king, he lifted his hat a trifle just as he was
beginning his remark.

Mainly they were drinking—from entire ox horns; but a few

were still munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was
about an average of two dogs to one man; and these sat in
expectant attitudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and
then they went for it by brigades and divisions, with a rush,
and there ensued a fight which filled the prospect with a
tumultuous chaos of plunging heads and bodies and flashing
tails, and the storm of howlings and barkings deafened all
speech for the time; but that was no matter, for the dog-fight
was always a bigger interest anyway; the men rose,
sometimes, to observe it the better and bet on it, and the
ladies and the musicians stretched themselves out over their
balusters with the same object; and all broke into delighted
ejaculations from time to time. In the end, the winning dog
stretched himself out comfortably with his bone between his
paws, and proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and
grease the floor with it, just as fifty others were already
doing; and the rest of the court resumed their previous
industries and entertainments.

As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people were

gracious and courtly; and I noticed that they were good and
serious listeners when anybody was telling anything—I mean
in a dog-fightless interval. And plainly, too, they were a
childlike and innocent lot; telling lies of the stateliest pattern
with a most gentle and winning naivety, and ready and
willing to listen to anybody else’s lie, and believe it, too. It
was hard to associate them with anything cruel or dreadful;
and yet they dealt in tales of blood and suffering with a
guileless relish that made me almost forget to shudder.

I was not the only prisoner present. There were twenty or

more. Poor devils, many of them were maimed, hacked,
carved, in a frightful way; and their hair, their faces, their
clothing, were caked with black and stiffened drenchings of
blood. They were suffering sharp physical pain, of course;
and weariness, and hunger and thirst, no doubt; and at least
none had given them the comfort of a wash, or even the
poor charity of a lotion for their wounds; yet you never
heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them show any
sign of restlessness, or any disposition to complain. The
thought was forced upon me: “The rascals—they have served
other people so in their day; it being their own turn, now,
they were not expecting any better treatment than this; so
their philosophical bearing is not an outcome of mental
training, intellectual fortitude, reasoning; it is mere animal
training; they are white Indians.”
Chapter III. Knights of the Table
Round
MAINLY the Round Table talk was monologues—narrative
accounts of the adventures in which these prisoners were
captured and their friends and backers killed and stripped of
their steeds and armor. As a general thing—as far as I could
make out—these murderous adventures were not forays
undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or
sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were simply duels
between strangers—duels between people who had never
even been introduced to each other, and between whom
existed no cause of offense whatever. Many a time I had seen
a couple of boys, strangers, meet by chance, and say
simultaneously, “I can lick you,” and go at it on the spot; but
I had always imagined until now that that sort of thing
belonged to children only, and was a sign and mark of
childhood; but here were these big boobies sticking to it and
taking pride in it clear up into full age and beyond. Yet there
was something very engaging about these great simple-
hearted creatures, something attractive and lovable. There
did not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to
speak, to bait a fish-hook with; but you didn’t seem to mind
that, after a little, because you soon saw that brains were
not needed in a society like that, and indeed would have
marred it, hindered it, spoiled its symmetry—perhaps
rendered its existence impossible.

There was a fine manliness observable in almost every face;

and in some a certain loftiness and sweetness that rebuked
your belittling criticisms and stilled them. A most noble
benignity and purity reposed in the countenance of him they
called Sir Galahad, and likewise in the king’s also; and there
was majesty and greatness in the giant frame and high
bearing of Sir Launcelot of the Lake.

There was presently an incident which centered the general

interest upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign from a sort of
master of ceremonies, six or eight of the prisoners rose and
came forward in a body and knelt on the floor and lifted up
their hands toward the ladies’ gallery and begged the grace
of a word with the queen. The most conspicuously situated
lady in that massed flower-bed of feminine show and finery
inclined her head by way of assent, and then the spokesman
of the prisoners delivered himself and his fellows into her
hands for free pardon, ransom, captivity, or death, as she in
her good pleasure might elect; and this, as he said, he was
doing by command of Sir Kay the Seneschal, whose prisoners
they were, he having vanquished them by his single might
and prowess in sturdy conflict in the field.

Surprise and astonishment flashed from face to face all over

the house; the queen’s gratified smile faded out at the name
of Sir Kay, and she looked disappointed; and the page
whispered in my ear with an accent and manner expressive
of extravagant derision—

“Sir KAY, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dearest, call me a

marine! In twice a thousand years shall the unholy invention
of man labor at odds to beget the fellow to this majestic lie!”

Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir Kay.
But he was equal to the occasion. He got up and played his
hand like a major—and took every trick. He said he would
state the case exactly according to the facts; he would tell
the simple straightforward tale, without comment of his own;
“and then,” said he, “if ye find glory and honor due, ye will
give it unto him who is the mightiest man of his hands that
ever bare shield or strake with sword in the ranks of
Christian battle—even him that sitteth there!” and he
pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched them; it was a
rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told how Sir
Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time gone by,
killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword, and set a
hundred and forty-two captive maidens free; and then went
further, still seeking adventures, and found him (Sir Kay)
fighting a desperate fight against nine foreign knights, and
straightway took the battle solely into his own hands, and
conquered the nine; and that night Sir Launcelot rose
quietly, and dressed him in Sir Kay’s armor and took Sir Kay’s
horse and gat him away into distant lands, and vanquished
sixteen knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four in
another; and all these and the former nine he made to swear
that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur’s court and
yield them to Queen Guenever’s hands as captives of Sir Kay
the Seneschal, spoil of his knightly prowess; and now here
were these half dozen, and the rest would be along as soon
as they might be healed of their desperate wounds.

Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and smile, and
look embarrassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir
Launcelot that would have got him shot in Arkansas, to a
dead certainty.

Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir

Launcelot; and as for me, I was perfectly amazed, that one
man, all by himself, should have been able to beat down and
capture such battalions of practiced fighters. I said as much
to Clarence; but this mocking featherhead only said:

“An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of sour wine
into him, ye had seen the accompt doubled.”
I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw the cloud
of a deep despondency settle upon his countenance. I
followed the direction of his eye, and saw that a very old and
white-bearded man, clothed in a flowing black gown, had
risen and was standing at the table upon unsteady legs, and
feebly swaying his ancient head and surveying the company
with his watery and wandering eye. The same suffering look
that was in the page’s face was observable in all the faces
around—the look of dumb creatures who know that they
must endure and make no moan.

“Marry, we shall have it a again,” sighed the boy; “that same

old weary tale that he hath told a thousand times in the
same words, and that he WILL tell till he dieth, every time he
hath gotten his barrel full and feeleth his exaggeration-mill
a-working. Would God I had died or I saw this day!”

“Who is it?”

“Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition singe him for
the weariness he worketh with his one tale! But that men
fear him for that he hath the storms and the lightnings and
all the devils that be in hell at his beck and call, they would
have dug his entrails out these many years ago to get at that
tale and squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person,
making believe he is too modest to glorify himself—
maledictions light upon him, misfortune be his dole! Good
friend, prithee call me for evensong.”

The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pretended to

go to sleep. The old man began his tale; and presently the
lad was asleep in reality; so also were the dogs, and the
court, the lackeys, and the files of men-at-arms. The droning
voice droned on; a soft snoring arose on all sides and
supported it like a deep and subdued accompaniment of wind
instruments. Some heads were bowed upon folded arms,
some lay back with open mouths that issued unconscious
music; the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats
swarmed softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered
about, and made themselves at home everywhere; and one
of them sat up like a squirrel on the king’s head and held a
bit of cheese in its hands and nibbled it, and dribbled the
crumbs in the king’s face with naive and impudent
irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and restful to the weary
eye and the jaded spirit.

This was the old man’s tale. He said:

“Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went until an

hermit that was a good man and a great leech. So the hermit
searched all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the
king was there three days, and then were his wounds well
amended that he might ride and go, and so departed. And as
they rode, Arthur said, I have no sword. No force [ Footnote
from M.T.: No matter.], said Merlin, hereby is a sword that
shall be yours and I may. So they rode till they came to a
lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst
of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white
samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. Lo, said Merlin,
yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that they saw a
damsel going upon the lake. What damsel is that? said
Arthur. That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within
that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on
earth, and richly beseen, and this damsel will come to you
anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will give you
that sword. Anon withal came the damsel unto Arthur and
saluted him, and he her again. Damsel, said Arthur, what
sword is that, that yonder the arm holdeth above the water?
I would it were mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur King,
said the damsel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a
gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said
Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. Well, said the
damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row yourself to the
sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask
my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin alight,
and tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the
ship, and when they came to the sword that the hand held,
Sir Arthur took it up by the handles, and took it with him.
And the arm and the hand went under the water; and so
they came unto the land and rode forth. And then Sir Arthur
saw a rich pavilion. What signifieth yonder pavilion? It is the
knight’s pavilion, said Merlin, that ye fought with last, Sir
Pellinore, but he is out, he is not there; he hath ado with a
knight of yours, that hight Egglame, and they have fought
together, but at the last Egglame fled, and else he had been
dead, and he hath chased him even to Carlion, and we shall
meet with him anon in the highway. That is well said, said
Arthur, now have I a sword, now will I wage battle with him,
and be avenged on him. Sir, ye shall not so, said Merlin, for
the knight is weary of fighting and chasing, so that ye shall
have no worship to have ado with him; also, he will not
lightly be matched of one knight living; and therefore it is
my counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service in
short time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye shall see that
day in short space ye shall be right glad to give him your
sister to wed. When I see him, I will do as ye advise me, said
Arthur. Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it
passing well. Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the
sword or the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said
Arthur. Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is
worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scabbard upon
you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore
wounded; therefore, keep well the scabbard always with you.
So they rode into Carlion, and by the way they met with Sir
Pellinore; but Merlin had done such a craft that Pellinore saw
not Arthur, and he passed by without any words. I marvel,
said Arthur, that the knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin,
he saw you not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly
departed. So they came unto Carlion, whereof his knights
were passing glad. And when they heard of his adventures
they marveled that he would jeopard his person so alone.
But all men of worship said it was merry to be under such a
chieftain that would put his person in adventure as other
poor knights did.”
Chapter IV. Sir Dinadan the Humorist
IT seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and
beautifully told; but then I had heard it only once, and that
makes a difference; it was pleasant to the others when it was
fresh, no doubt.

Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he

soon roused the rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently
poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to a dog’s tail and
turned him loose, and he tore around and around the place
in a frenzy of fright, with all the other dogs bellowing after
him and battering and crashing against everything that came
in their way and making altogether a chaos of confusion and
a most deafening din and turmoil; at which every man and
woman of the multitude laughed till the tears flowed, and
some fell out of their chairs and wallowed on the floor in
ecstasy. It was just like so many children. Sir Dinadan was so
proud of his exploit that he could not keep from telling over
and over again, to weariness, how the immortal idea
happened to occur to him; and as is the way with humorists
of his breed, he was still laughing at it after everybody else
had got through. He was so set up that he concluded to make
a speech—of course a humorous speech. I think I never
heard so many old played-out jokes strung together in my
life. He was worse than the minstrels, worse than the clown
in the circus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen
hundred years before I was born, and listen again to poor,
flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry gripes
when I was a boy thirteen hundred years after wards. It
about convinced me that there isn’t any such thing as a new
joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities—but
then they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later.
However, of course the scoffer didn’t laugh—I mean the boy.
No, he scoffed; there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t scoff at.
He said the most of Sir Dinadan’s jokes were rotten and the
rest were petrified. I said “petrified” was good; as I believed,
myself, that the only right way to classify the majestic ages
of some of those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat
idea hit the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn’t been
invented yet. However, I made a note of the remark, and
calculated to educate the commonwealth up to it if I pulled
through. It is no use to throw a good thing away merely
because the market isn’t ripe yet.

Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill

with me for fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did.
Sir Kay told how he had en countered me in a far land of
barbarians, who all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did
—a garb that was a work of enchantment, and intended to
make the wearer secure from hurt by human hands.
However he had nullified the force of the enchantment by
prayer, and had killed my thirteen knights in a three hours’
battle, and taken me prisoner, sparing my life in order that
so strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited to the
wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He spoke
of me all the time, in the blandest way, as “this prodigious
giant,” and “this horrible sky-towering monster,” and “this
tusked and taloned man-devouring ogre,” and everybody
took in all this bosh in the naivest way, and never smiled or
seemed to notice that there was any discrepancy between
these watered statistics and me. He said that in trying to
escape from him I sprang into the top of a tree two hundred
cubits high at a single bound, but he dislodged me with a
stone the size of a cow, which “all-to brast” the most of my
bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur’s court for
sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at noon on the
21st; and was so little concerned about it that he stopped to
yawn before he named the date.

I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was hardly

enough in my right mind to keep the run of a dispute that
sprung up as to how I had better be killed, the possibility of
the killing being doubted by some, because of the
enchantment in my clothes. And yet it was nothing but an
ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop shops. Still, I was sane
enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of the terms used
in the most matter-of- fact way by this great assemblage of
the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would have made a
Comanche blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the
idea. However, I had read “Tom Jones,” and “Roderick
Random,” and other books of that kind, and knew that the
highest and first ladies and gentlemen in England had
remained little or no cleaner in their talk, and in the morals
and conduct which such talk implies, clear up to a hundred
years ago; in fact clear into our own nineteenth century—in
which century, broadly speaking, the earliest samples of the
real lady and real gentleman discoverable in English history
—or in European history, for that matter—may be said to
have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, in stead of
putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters,
had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We
should have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft
lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp in our day.
However, to the unconsciously indelicate all things are
delicate. King Arthur’s people were not aware that they were
indecent and I had presence of mind enough not to mention
it.
They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes that they
were mightily relieved, at last, when old Merlin swept the
difficulty away for them with a common-sense hint. He asked
them why they were so dull—why didn’t it occur to them to
strip me. In half a minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs!
And dear, dear, to think of it: I was the only embarrassed
person there. Everybody discussed me; and did it as
unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage. Queen Guenever
was as naively interested as the rest, and said she had never
seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It was the only
compliment I got—if it was a compliment.

Finally I was carried off in one direction, and my perilous

clothes in another. I was shoved into a dark and narrow cell
in a dungeon, with some scant remnants for dinner, some
moldy straw for a bed, and no end of rats for company.
Chapter V. An Inspiration
I WAS so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me
awake long.

When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a

very long time. My first thought was, “Well, what an
astonishing dream I’ve had! I reckon I’ve waked only just in
time to keep from being hanged or drowned or burned or
something.... I’ll nap again till the whistle blows, and then I’ll
go down to the arms factory and have it out with Hercules.”

But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and
bolts, a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence,
stood before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost
got away from me.

“What!” I said, “you here yet? Go along with the rest of the
dream! scatter!”

But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to

making fun of my sorry plight.

“All right,” I said resignedly, “let the dream go on; I’m in no

hurry.”

“Prithee what dream?”

“What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur’s court—a

person who never existed; and that I am talking to you, who
are nothing but a work of the imagination.”

“Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you’re to be burned

to-morrow? Ho-ho—answer me that!”
The shock that went through me was distressing. I now
began to reason that my situation was in the last degree
serious, dream or no dream; for I knew by past experience of
the lifelike intensity of dreams, that to be burned to death,
even in a dream, would be very far from being a jest, and
was a thing to be avoided, by any means, fair or foul, that I
could contrive. So I said beseechingly:

“Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I’ve got,—for you ARE
my friend, aren’t you?—don’t fail me; help me to devise
some way of escaping from this place!”

“Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors

are in guard and keep of men-at-arms.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I

hope?”

“Full a score. One may not hope to escape.” After a pause—

hesitatingly: “and there be other rea sons—and weightier.”

“Other ones? What are they?”

“Well, they say—oh, but I daren’t, indeed daren’t!”

“Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you blench? Why
do you tremble so?”

“Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, but—”

“Come, come, be brave, be a man—speak out, there’s a good

lad!”

He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other way by

fear; then he stole to the door and peeped out, listening; and
finally crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and
told me his fearful news in a whisper, and with all the
cowering apprehension of one who was venturing upon awful
ground and speaking of things whose very mention might be
freighted with death.

“Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this dungeon,

and there bides not the man in these kingdoms that would be
desperate enough to essay to cross its lines with you! Now
God pity me, I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to
a poor boy who means thee well; for an thou betray me I am
lost!”

I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had for some
time; and shouted:

“Merlin has wrought a spell! MERLIN, forsooth! That cheap

old humbug, that maundering old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the
silliest bosh in the world! Why, it does seem to me that of all
the childish, idiotic, chuckle-headed, chicken-livered
superstitions that ev—oh, damn Merlin!”

But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half

finished, and he was like to go out of his mind with fright.

“Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any moment these

walls may crumble upon us if you say such things. Oh call
them back before it is too late!”

Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and set me

to thinking. If everybody about here was so honestly and
sincerely afraid of Merlin’s pretended magic as Clarence was,
certainly a superior man like me ought to be shrewd enough
to contrive some way to take advantage of such a state of
things. I went on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I
said:
“Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the eye. Do you
know why I laughed?”

“No—but for our blessed Lady’s sake, do it no more.”

“Well, I’ll tell you why I laughed. Because I’m a magician

myself.”

“Thou!” The boy recoiled a step, and caught his breath, for
the thing hit him rather sudden; but the aspect which he
took on was very, very respectful. I took quick note of that;
it indicated that a humbug didn’t need to have a reputation
in this asylum; people stood ready to take him at his word,
without that. I resumed.

“I’ve know Merlin seven hundred years, and he—”

“Seven hun—”

“Don’t interrupt me. He has died and come alive again

thirteen times, and traveled under a new name every time:
Smith, Jones, Robinson, Jackson, Peters, Haskins, Merlin—a
new alias every time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt three
hundred years ago; I knew him in India five hundred years
ago—he is always blethering around in my way, everywhere I
go; he makes me tired. He don’t amount to shucks, as a
magician; knows some of the old common tricks, but has
never got beyond the rudiments, and never will. He is well
enough for the provinces—one-night stands and that sort of
thing, you know—but dear me, HE oughtn’t to set up for an
expert—anyway not where there’s a real artist. Now look
here, Clarence, I am going to stand your friend, right along,
and in re turn you must be mine. I want you to do me a
favor. I want you to get word to the king that I am a
magician myself—and the Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-
amuck and head of the tribe, at that; and I want him to be
made to understand that I am just quietly arranging a little
calamity here that will make the fur fly in these realms if Sir
Kay’s project is carried out and any harm comes to me. Will
you get that to the king for me?”

The poor boy was in such a state that he could hardly answer
me. It was pitiful to see a creature so terrified, so unnerved,
so demoralized. But he promised everything; and on my side
he made me promise over and over again that I would
remain his friend, and never turn against him or cast any
enchantments upon him. Then he worked his way out,
staying himself with his hand along the wall, like a sick
person.

Presently this thought occurred to me: how heed less I have

been! When the boy gets calm, he will wonder why a great
magician like me should have begged a boy like him to help
me get out of this place; he will put this and that together,
and will see that I am a humbug.

I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour, and called

myself a great many hard names, meantime. But finally it
occurred to me all of a sudden that these animals didn’t
reason; that THEY never put this and that together; that all
their talk showed that they didn’t know a discrepancy when
they saw it. I was at rest, then.

But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on

something else to worry about. It occurred to me that I had
made another blunder: I had sent the boy off to alarm his
betters with a threat—I intending to invent a calamity at my
leisure; now the people who are the readiest and eagerest
and willingest to swallow miracles are the very ones who are
hungriest to see you perform them; suppose I should be
called on for a sample? Suppose I should be asked to name
my calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder; I ought to have
invented my calamity first. “What shall I do? what can I say,
to gain a little time?” I was in trouble again; in the deepest
kind of trouble:... “There’s a footstep!—they’re coming. If I
had only just a moment to think.... Good, I’ve got it. I’m all
right.”

You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick
of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people,
played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages,
and I saw my chance. I could play it myself, now, and it
wouldn’t be any plagiarism, either, because I should get it in
nearly a thousand years ahead of those parties.

Clarence came in, subdued, distressed, and said:

“I hasted the message to our liege the king, and straightway

he had me to his presence. He was frighted even to the
marrow, and was minded to give order for your instant
enlargement, and that you be clothed in fine raiment and
lodged as befitted one so great; but then came Merlin and
spoiled all; for he persuaded the king that you are mad, and
know not whereof you speak; and said your threat is but
foolish ness and idle vaporing. They disputed long, but in the
end, Merlin, scoffing, said, ‘Wherefore hath he not named his
brave calamity? Verily it is because he cannot.’ This thrust
did in a most sudden sort close the king’s mouth, and he
could offer naught to turn the argument; and so, reluctant,
and full loth to do you the discourtesy, he yet prayeth you to
consider his perplexed case, as noting how the matter
stands, and name the calamity—if so be you have
determined the nature of it and the time of its coming. Oh,
prithee delay not; to delay at such a time were to double and
treble the perils that already compass thee about. Oh, be
thou wise—name the calamity!”

I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my

impressiveness together, and then said:

“How long have I been shut up in this hole?”

“Ye were shut up when yesterday was well spent It is 9 of the

morning now.”

“No! Then I have slept well, sure enough. Nine in the

morning now! And yet it is the very complexion of midnight,
to a shade. This is the 20th, then?”

“The 20th—yes.”

“And I am to be burned alive to-morrow.” The boy shuddered.

“At what hour?”

“At high noon.”

“Now then, I will tell you what to say.” I paused, and stood
over that cowering lad a whole minute in awful silence; then,
in a voice deep, measured, charged with doom, I began, and
rose by dramatically graded stages to my colossal climax,
which I delivered in as sublime and noble a way as ever I did
such a thing in my life: “Go back and tell the king that at
that hour I will smother the whole world in the dead
blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he shall
never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack of
light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish
and die, to the last man!”

I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such a

collapse. I handed him over to the soldiers, and went back.
Chapter VI. The Eclipse
IN the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to
supplement knowledge. The mere knowledge of a fact is
pale; but when you come to realize your fact, it takes on
color. It is all the difference between hearing of a man being
stabbed to the heart, and seeing it done. In the stillness and
the darkness, the knowledge that I was in deadly danger
took to itself deeper and deeper meaning all the time; a
something which was realization crept inch by inch through
my veins and turned me cold.

But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like

these, as soon as a man’s mercury has got down to a certain
point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs
up, and cheerfulness along with it, and then he is in good
shape to do something for himself, if anything can be done.
When my rally came, it came with a bound. I said to myself
that my eclipse would be sure to save me, and make me the
greatest man in the kingdom besides; and straightway my
mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my solicitudes
all vanished. I was as happy a man as there was in the
world. I was even impatient for tomorrow to come, I so
wanted to gather in that great triumph and be the center of
all the nation’s wonder and reverence. Besides, in a business
way it would be the making of me; I knew that.

Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed into the
background of my mind. That was the half- conviction that
when the nature of my proposed calamity should be reported
to those superstitious people, it would have such an effect
that they would want to compromise. So, by and by when I
heard footsteps coming, that thought was recalled to me, and
I said to myself, “As sure as anything, it’s the com promise.
Well, if it is good, all right, I will accept; but if it isn’t, I mean
to stand my ground and play my hand for all it is worth.”

The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared. The

leader said:

“The stake is ready. Come!”

The stake! The strength went out of me, and I almost fell
down. It is hard to get one’s breath at such a time, such
lumps come into one’s throat, and such gaspings; but as soon
as I could speak, I said:

“But this is a mistake—the execution is tomorrow.”

“Order changed; been set forward a day. Haste thee!”

I was lost. There was no help for me. I was dazed, stupefied;
I had no command over myself, I only wandered purposely
about, like one out of his mind; so the soldiers took hold of
me, and pulled me along with them, out of the cell and along
the maze of underground corridors, and finally into the fierce
glare of daylight and the upper world. As we stepped into the
vast enclosed court of the castle I got a shock; for the first
thing I saw was the stake, standing in the center, and near it
the piled fagots and a monk. On all four sides of the court
the seated multitudes rose rank above rank, forming sloping
terraces that were rich with color. The king and the queen sat
in their thrones, the most conspicuous figures there, of
course.

To note all this, occupied but a second. The next second

Clarence had slipped from some place of concealment and
was pouring news into my ear, his eyes beaming with
triumph and gladness. He said:

“’Tis through me the change was wrought! And main hard

have I worked to do it, too. But when I revealed to them the
calamity in store, and saw how mighty was the terror it did
engender, then saw I also that this was the time to strike!
Wherefore I diligently pretended, unto this and that and the
other one, that your power against the sun could not reach
its full until the morrow; and so if any would save the sun
and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your
enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency.
Odsbodikins, it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent
invention, but you should have seen them seize it and
swallow it, in the frenzy of their fright, as it were salvation
sent from heaven; and all the while was I laughing in my
sleeve the one moment, to see them so cheaply deceived,
and glorifying God the next, that He was content to let the
meanest of His creatures be His instrument to the saving of
thy life. Ah how happy has the matter sped! You will not
need to do the sun a REAL hurt—ah, forget not that, on your
soul forget it not! Only make a little darkness—only the
littlest little darkness, mind, and cease with that. It will be
sufficient. They will see that I spoke falsely,—being ignorant,
as they will fancy—and with the falling of the first shadow of
that darkness you shall see them go mad with fear; and they
will set you free and make you great! Go to thy triumph,
now! But re member—ah, good friend, I implore thee
remember my supplication, and do the blessed sun no hurt.
For MY sake, thy true friend.”

I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as

much as to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad’s
eyes paid me back with such deep and loving gratitude that I
had not the heart to tell him his good-hearted foolishness
had ruined me and sent me to my death.

As the soldiers assisted me across the court the stillness was

so profound that if I had been blindfold I should have
supposed I was in a solitude instead of walled in by four
thousand people. There was not a movement perceptible in
those masses of humanity; they were as rigid as stone
images, and as pale; and dread sat upon every countenance.
This hush continued while I was being chained to the stake;
it still continued while the fagots were carefully and tediously
piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs, my body. Then
there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible, and a man
knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; the multitude
strained forward, gazing, and parting slightly from their seats
without knowing it; the monk raised his hands above my
head, and his eyes toward the blue sky, and began some
words in Latin; in this attitude he droned on and on, a little
while, and then stopped. I waited two or three moments;
then looked up; he was standing there petrified. With a
common impulse the multitude rose slowly up and stared
into the sky. I followed their eyes, as sure as guns, there was
my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling through my
veins; I was a new man! The rim of black spread slowly into
the sun’s disk, my heart beat higher and higher, and still the
assemblage and the priest stared into the sky, motionless. I
knew that this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it
was, l was ready. I was in one of the most grand attitudes I
ever struck, with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It
was a noble effect. You could see the shudder sweep the
mass like a wave. Two shouts rang out, one close upon the
heels of the other:

“Apply the torch!”

“I forbid it!”
The one was from Merlin, the other from the king. Merlin
started from his place—to apply the torch himself, I judged. I
said:

“Stay where you are. If any man moves—even the king—

before I give him leave, I will blast him with thunder, I will
consume him with lightnings!”

The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was just
expecting they would. Merlin hesitated a moment or two, and
I was on pins and needles during that little while. Then he
sat down, and I took a good breath; for I knew I was master
of the situation now. The king said:

“Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this perilous

matter, lest disaster follow. It was reported to us that your
powers could not attain unto their full strength until the
morrow; but—”

“Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a lie? It was
a lie.”

That made an immense effect; up went appealing hands

everywhere, and the king was assailed with a storm of
supplications that I might be bought off at any price, and the
calamity stayed. The king was eager to comply. He said:

“Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving of my

kingdom; but banish this calamity, spare the sun!”

My fortune was made. I would have taken him up in a

minute, but I couldn’t stop an eclipse; the thing was out of
the question. So I asked time to consider. The king said:

“How long—ah, how long, good sir? Be merciful; look, it

groweth darker, moment by moment. Prithee how long?”
“Not long. Half an hour—maybe an hour.”

There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I couldn’t

shorten up any, for I couldn’t remember how long a total
eclipse lasts. I was in a puzzled condition, anyway, and
wanted to think. Something was wrong about that eclipse,
and the fact was very un settling. If this wasn’t the one I was
after, how was I to tell whether this was the sixth century, or
nothing but a dream? Dear me, if I could only prove it was
the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy was right
about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it WASN’T the
sixth century. I reached for the monk’s sleeve, in
considerable excitement, and asked him what day of the
month it was.

Hang him, he said it was the twenty-first! It made me turn

cold to hear him. I begged him not to make any mistake
about it; but he was sure; he knew it was the 21st. So, that
feather-headed boy had botched things again! The time of
the day was right for the eclipse; I had seen that for myself,
in the beginning, by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in
King Arthur’s court, and I might as well make the most out of
it I could.

The darkness was steadily growing, the people be coming

more and more distressed. I now said:

“I have reflected, Sir King. For a lesson, I will let this

darkness proceed, and spread night in the world; but
whether I blot out the sun for good, or restore it, shall rest
with you. These are the terms, to wit: You shall remain king
over all your dominions, and receive all the glories and
honors that belong to the kingship; but you shall appoint me
your perpetual minister and executive, and give me for my
services one per cent. of such actual increase of revenue
over and above its present amount as I may succeed in
creating for the state. If I can’t live on that, I sha’n’t ask
anybody to give me a lift. Is it satisfactory?”

There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of the midst

of it the king’s voice rose, saying:

“Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do him homage,
high and low, rich and poor, for he is become the king’s right
hand, is clothed with power and authority, and his seat is
upon the highest step of the throne! Now sweep away this
creeping night, and bring the light and cheer again, that all
the world may bless thee.”

But I said:

“That a common man should be shamed before the world, is

nothing; but it were dishonor to the King if any that saw his
minister naked should not also see him delivered from his
shame. If I might ask that my clothes be brought again—”

“They are not meet,” the king broke in. “Fetch raiment of
another sort; clothe him like a prince!”

My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they were till the

eclipse was total, otherwise they would be trying again to get
me to dismiss the darkness, and of course I couldn’t do it.
Sending for the clothes gained some delay, but not enough.
So I had to make another excuse. I said it would be but
natural if the king should change his mind and repent to
some extent of what he had done under excitement; there
fore I would let the darkness grow a while, and if at the end
of a reasonable time the king had kept his mind the same,
the darkness should be dismissed. Neither the king nor
anybody else was satisfied with that arrangement, but I had
to stick to my point.

It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I

struggled with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to
be pitch dark, at last, and the multitude groaned with horror
to feel the cold uncanny night breezes fan through the place
and see the stars come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the
eclipse was total, and I was very glad of it, but everybody
else was in misery; which was quite natural. I said:

“The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms.” Then I

lifted up my hands—stood just so a moment—then I said,
with the most awful solemnity: “Let the enchantment
dissolve and pass harmless away!”

There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness

and that graveyard hush. But when the silver rim of the sun
pushed itself out, a moment or two later, the assemblage
broke loose with a vast shout and came pouring down like a
deluge to smother me with blessings and gratitude; and
Clarence was not the last of the wash, to be sure.
Chapter VII. Merlin’s Tower
INASMUCH as I was now the second personage in the
Kingdom, as far as political power and authority were
concerned, much was made of me. My raiment was of silks
and velvets and cloth of gold, and by consequence was very
showy, also uncomfortable. But habit would soon reconcile
me to my clothes; I was aware of that. I was given the
choicest suite of apartments in the castle, after the king’s.
They were aglow with loud-colored silken hangings, but the
stone floors had nothing but rushes on them for a carpet,
and they were misfit rushes at that, being not all of one
breed. As for conveniences, properly speaking, there weren’t
any. I mean little conveniences; it is the little conveniences
that make the real comfort of life. The big oaken chairs,
graced with rude carvings, were well enough, but that was
the stopping place. There was no soap, no matches, no
looking-glass—except a metal one, about as powerful as a
pail of water. And not a chromo. I had been used to chromos
for years, and I saw now that without my suspecting it a
passion for art had got worked into the fabric of my being,
and was become a part of me. It made me homesick to look
around over this proud and gaudy but heartless barrenness
and remember that in our house in East Hartford, all
unpretending as it was, you couldn’t go into a room but you
would find an insurance-chromo, or at least a three-color
God-Bless-Our-Home over the door; and in the parlor we had
nine. But here, even in my grand room of state, there wasn’t
anything in the nature of a picture except a thing the size of
a bedquilt, which was either woven or knitted (it had darned
places in it), and nothing in it was the right color or the right
shape; and as for proportions, even Raphael himself couldn’t
have botched them more formidably, after all his practice on
those nightmares they call his “celebrated Hampton Court
cartoons.” Raphael was a bird. We had several of his
chromos; one was his “Miraculous Draught of Fishes,” where
he puts in a miracle of his own—puts three men into a canoe
which wouldn’t have held a dog without up setting. I always
admired to study R.’s art, it was so fresh and unconventional.

There wasn’t even a bell or a speaking-tube in the castle. I

had a great many servants, and those that were on duty
lolled in the anteroom; and when I wanted one of them I had
to go and call for him. There was no gas, there were no
candles; a bronze dish half full of boarding-house butter with
a blazing rag floating in it was the thing that produced what
was regarded as light. A lot of these hung along the walls
and modified the dark, just toned it down enough to make it
dismal. If you went out at night, your servants carried
torches. There were no books, pens, paper or ink, and no
glass in the openings they believed to be windows. It is a
little thing—glass is—until it is absent, then it becomes a big
thing. But perhaps the worst of all was, that there wasn’t any
sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco. I saw that I was just another
Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited island, with no
society but some more or less tame animals, and if I wanted
to make life bearable I must do as he did—invent, contrive,
create, reorganize things; set brain and hand to work, and
keep them busy. Well, that was in my line.

One thing troubled me along at first—the immense interest

which people took in me. Apparently the whole nation
wanted a look at me. It soon transpired that the eclipse had
scared the British world almost to death; that while it lasted
the whole country, from one end to the other, was in a
pitiable state of panic, and the churches, hermitages, and
monkeries overflowed with praying and weeping poor
creatures who thought the end of the world was come. Then
had followed the news that the producer of this awful event
was a stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur’s court; that he
could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was just
going to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then
dissolved his enchantments, and was now recognized and
honored as the man who had by his unaided might saved the
globe from destruction and its peoples from extinction. Now if
you consider that everybody believed that, and not only
believed it, but never even dreamed of doubting it, you will
easily understand that there was not a person in all Britain
that would not have walked fifty miles to get a sight of me.
Of course I was all the talk—all other subjects were dropped;
even the king became suddenly a per son of minor interest
and notoriety. Within twenty- four hours the delegations
began to arrive, and from that time onward for a fortnight
they kept coming. The village was crowded, and all the
countryside. I had to go out a dozen times a day and show
myself to these reverent and awe-stricken multitudes. It
came to be a great burden, as to time and trouble, but of
course it was at the same time compensatingly agree able to
be so celebrated and such a center of homage. It turned Brer
Merlin green with envy and spite, which was a great
satisfaction to me. But there was one thing I couldn’t
understand—nobody had asked for an autograph. I spoke to
Clarence about it. By George! I had to explain to him what it
was. Then he said nobody in the country could read or write
but a few dozen priests. Land! think of that.

There was another thing that troubled me a little. Those

multitudes presently began to agitate for another miracle.
That was natural. To be able to carry back to their far homes
the boast that they had seen the man who could command
the sun, riding in the heavens, and be obeyed, would make
them great in the eyes of their neighbors, and envied by
them all; but to be able to also say they had seen him work a
miracle themselves—why, people would come a distance to
see THEM. The pressure got to be pretty strong. There was
going to be an eclipse of the moon, and I knew the date and
hour, but it was too far away. Two years. I would have given
a good deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when
there was a big market for it. It seemed a great pity to have
it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time when a body
wouldn’t have any use for it, as like as not. If it had been
booked for only a month away, I could have sold it short;
but, as matters stood, I couldn’t seem to cipher out any way
to make it do me any good, so I gave up trying. Next,
Clarence found that old Merlin was making himself busy on
the sly among those people. He was spreading a report that I
was a humbug, and that the reason I didn’t accommodate the
people with a miracle was because I couldn’t. I saw that I
must do something. I presently thought out a plan.

By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into prison—the

same cell I had occupied myself. Then I gave public notice by
herald and trumpet that I should be busy with affairs of state
for a fortnight, but about the end of that time I would take a
moment’s leisure and blow up Merlin’s stone tower by fires
from heaven; in the meantime, whoso listened to evil re
ports about me, let him beware. Furthermore, I would
perform but this one miracle at this time, and no more; if it
failed to satisfy and any murmured, I would turn the
murmurers into horses, and make them useful. Quiet
ensued.

I took Clarence into my confidence, to a certain degree, and

we went to work privately. I told him that this was a sort of
miracle that required a trifle of preparation, and that it would
be sudden death to ever talk about these preparations to
anybody. That made his mouth safe enough. Clandestinely
we made a few bushels of first-rate blasting powder, and I
superintended my armorers while they constructed a
lightning- rod and some wires. This old stone tower was very
massive—and rather ruinous, too, for it was Roman, and four
hundred years old. Yes, and handsome, after a rude fashion,
and clothed with ivy from base to summit, as with a shirt of
scale mail. It stood on a lonely eminence, in good view from
the castle, and about half a mile away.

Working by night, we stowed the powder in the tower—dug

stones out, on the inside, and buried the powder in the walls
themselves, which were fifteen feet thick at the base. We put
in a peck at a time, in a dozen places. We could have blown
up the Tower of London with these charges. When the
thirteenth night was come we put up our lightning-rod,
bedded it in one of the batches of powder, and ran wires from
it to the other batches. Everybody had shunned that locality
from the day of my proclamation, but on the morning of the
fourteenth I thought best to warn the people, through the
heralds, to keep clear away—a quarter of a mile away. Then
added, by command, that at some time during the twenty-
four hours I would consummate the miracle, but would first
give a brief notice; by flags on the castle towers if in the
daytime, by torch-baskets in the same places if at night.

Thunder-showers had been tolerably frequent of late, and I

was not much afraid of a failure; still, I shouldn’t have cared
for a delay of a day or two; I should have explained that I
was busy with affairs of state yet, and the people must wait.

Of course, we had a blazing sunny day—almost the first one

without a cloud for three weeks; things always happen so. I
kept secluded, and watched the weather. Clarence dropped in
from time to time and said the public excitement was
growing and growing all the time, and the whole country
filling up with human masses as far as one could see from
the battlements. At last the wind sprang up and a cloud
appeared—in the right quarter, too, and just at nightfall. For
a little while I watched that distant cloud spread and blacken,
then I judged it was time for me to appear. I ordered the
torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liberated and sent to me.
A quarter of an hour later I ascended the parapet and there
found the king and the court assembled and gazing off in the
darkness toward Merlin’s Tower. Already the darkness was so
heavy that one could not see far; these people and the old
turrets, being partly in deep shadow and partly in the red
glow from the great torch-baskets overhead, made a good
deal of a picture.

Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said:

“You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done you any
harm, and latterly you have been trying to injure my
professional reputation. Therefore I am going to call down
fire and blow up your tower, but it is only fair to give you a
chance; now if you think you can break my enchantments
and ward off the fires, step to the bat, it’s your innings.”

“I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not.”

He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the roof, and

burnt a pinch of powder in it, which sent up a small cloud of
aromatic smoke, whereat everybody fell back and began to
cross themselves and get un comfortable. Then he began to
mutter and make passes in the air with his hands. He worked
himself up slowly and gradually into a sort of frenzy, and got
to thrashing around with his arms like the sails of a windmill.
By this time the storm had about reached us; the gusts of
wind were flaring the torches and making the shadows swash
about, the first heavy drops of rain were falling, the world
abroad was black as pitch, the lightning began to wink
fitfully. Of course, my rod would be loading itself now. In fact,
things were imminent. So I said:

“You have had time enough. I have given you every

advantage, and not interfered. It is plain your magic is weak.
It is only fair that I begin now.”

I made about three passes in the air, and then there was an
awful crash and that old tower leaped into the sky in chunks,
along with a vast volcanic fountain of fire that turned night
to noonday, and showed a thou sand acres of human beings
groveling on the ground in a general collapse of
consternation. Well, it rained mortar and masonry the rest of
the week. This was the report; but probably the facts would
have modi fied it.

It was an effective miracle. The great bothersome temporary

population vanished. There were a good many thousand
tracks in the mud the next morning, but they were all
outward bound. If I had advertised another miracle I couldn’t
have raised an audience with a sheriff.

Merlin’s stock was flat. The king wanted to stop his wages; he
even wanted to banish him, but I interfered. I said he would
be useful to work the weather, and attend to small matters
like that, and I would give him a lift now and then when his
poor little parlor- magic soured on him. There wasn’t a rag of
his tower left, but I had the government rebuild it for him,
and advised him to take boarders; but he was too high-
toned for that. And as for being grateful, he never even said
thank you. He was a rather hard lot, take him how you
might; but then you couldn’t fairly expect a man to be sweet
that had been set back so.
Chapter VIII. The Boss
TO be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to
have the on-looking world consent to it is a finer. The tower
episode solidified my power, and made it impregnable. If any
were per chance disposed to be jealous and critical before
that, they experienced a change of heart, now. There was
not any one in the kingdom who would have considered it
good judgment to meddle with my matters.

I was fast getting adjusted to my situation and

circumstances. For a time, I used to wake up, mornings, and
smile at my “dream,” and listen for the Colt’s factory whistle;
but that sort of thing played itself out, gradually, and at last I
was fully able to realize that I was actually living in the sixth
century, and in Arthur’s court, not a lunatic asylum. After
that, I was just as much at home in that century as I could
have been in any other; and as for preference, I wouldn’t
have traded it for the twentieth. Look at the opportunities
here for a man of knowledge, brains, pluck, and enterprise to
sail in and grow up with the country. The grandest field that
ever was; and all my own; not a competitor; not a man who
wasn’t a baby to me in acquirements and capacities;
whereas, what would I amount to in the twentieth century? I
should be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could
drag a seine down street any day and catch a hundred better
men than myself.

What a jump I had made! I couldn’t keep from thinking about

it, and contemplating it, just as one does who has struck oil.
There was nothing back of me that could approach it, unless
it might be Joseph’s case; and Joseph’s only approached it, it
didn’t equal it, quite. For it stands to reason that as Joseph’s
splendid financial ingenuities advantaged nobody but the
king, the general public must have regarded him with a good
deal of disfavor, whereas I had done my entire public a
kindness in sparing the sun, and was popular by reason of it.

I was no shadow of a king; I was the substance; the king

himself was the shadow. My power was colossal; and it was
not a mere name, as such things have generally been, it was
the genuine article. I stood here, at the very spring and
source of the second great period of the world’s history; and
could see the trickling stream of that history gather and
deepen and broaden, and roll its mighty tides down the far
centuries; and I could note the upspringing of adventurers
like myself in the shelter of its long array of thrones: De
Montforts, Gavestons, Mortimers, Villierses; the war-making,
campaign-directing wantons of France, and Charles the
Second’s scepter-wielding drabs; but nowhere in the
procession was my full- sized fellow visible. I was a Unique;
and glad to know that that fact could not be dislodged or
challenged for thirteen centuries and a half, for sure. Yes, in
power I was equal to the king. At the same time there was
another power that was a trifle stronger than both of us put
together. That was the Church. I do not wish to disguise that
fact. I couldn’t, if I wanted to. But never mind about that,
now; it will show up, in its proper place, later on. It didn’t
cause me any trouble in the beginning—at least any of
consequence.

Well, it was a curious country, and full of interest. And the

people! They were the quaintest and simplest and trustingest
race; why, they were nothing but rabbits. It was pitiful for a
person born in a whole some free atmosphere to listen to
their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their
king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more
occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a
slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love
and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY
kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy,
howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born
and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably
never find it out for yourself, and don’t believe it when
somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body
ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has
always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or
reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always
figured as its aristocracies—a company of monarchs and
nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and
obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions.

The most of King Arthur’s British nation were slaves, pure

and simple, and bore that name, and wore the iron collar on
their necks; and the rest were slaves in fact, but without the
name; they imagined them selves men and freemen, and
called themselves so. The truth was, the nation as a body
was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel
before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat
blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they
might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be
happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay
taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be
familiar all their lives with the degrading language and
postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think
themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks
they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were
they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.

Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to

observe and examine. I had mine, the king and his people
had theirs. In both cases they flowed in ruts worn deep by
time and habit, and the man who should have proposed to
divert them by reason and argument would have had a long
contract on his hands. For instance, those people had
inherited the idea that all men without title and a long
pedigree, whether they had great natural gifts and
acquirements or hadn’t, were creatures of no more
consideration than so many animals, bugs, insects; whereas I
had inherited the idea that human daws who can consent to
masquerade in the peacock-shams of inherited dignities and
unearned titles, are of no good but to be laughed at. The way
I was looked upon was odd, but it was natural. You know how
the keeper and the public regard the elephant in the
menagerie: well, that is the idea. They are full of admiration
of his vast bulk and his prodigious strength; they speak with
pride of the fact that he can do a hundred marvels which are
far and away beyond their own powers; and they speak with
the same pride of the fact that in his wrath he is able to
drive a thousand men before him. But does that make him
one of THEM? No; the raggedest tramp in the pit would smile
at the idea. He couldn’t comprehend it; couldn’t take it in;
couldn’t in any remote way conceive of it. Well, to the king,
the nobles, and all the nation, down to the very slaves and
tramps, I was just that kind of an elephant, and nothing
more. I was admired, also feared; but it was as an animal is
admired and feared. The animal is not reverenced, neither
was I; I was not even respected. I had no pedigree, no
inherited title; so in the king’s and nobles’ eyes I was mere
dirt; the people regarded me with wonder and awe, but there
was no reverence mixed with it; through the force of
inherited ideas they were not able to conceive of any thing
being entitled to that except pedigree and lordship. There
you see the hand of that awful power, the Roman Catholic
Church. In two or three little centuries it had converted a
nation of men to a nation of worms. Before the day of the
Church’s supremacy in the world, men were men, and held
their heads up, and had a man’s pride and spirit and
independence; and what of greatness and position a person
got, he got mainly by achievement, not by birth. But then
the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind; and she
was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat
—or a nation; she invented “divine right of kings,” and
propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes—
wrenching them from their good purpose to make them
fortify an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility,
obedience to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she
preached (to the commoner) meekness under insult;
preached (still to the commoner, always to the commoner)
patience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance under
oppression; and she introduced heritable ranks and
aristocracies, and taught all the Christian populations of the
earth to bow down to them and worship them. Even down to
my birth-century that poison was still in the blood of
Christendom, and the best of English commoners was still
content to see his inferiors impudently continuing to hold a
number of positions, such as lord ships and the throne, to
which the grotesque laws of his country did not allow him to
aspire; in fact, he was not merely contented with this
strange condition of things, he was even able to persuade
himself that he was proud of it. It seems to show that there
isn’t anything you can’t stand, if you are only born and bred
to it. Of course that taint, that reverence for rank and title,
had been in our American blood, too—I know that; but when
I left America it had disappeared—at least to all intents and
purposes. The remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and
dudesses. When a disease has worked its way down to that
level, it may fairly be said to be out of the system.
But to return to my anomalous position in King Arthur’s
kingdom. Here I was, a giant among pigmies, a man among
children, a master intelligence among intellectual moles: by
all rational measurement the one and only actually great
man in that whole British world; and yet there and then, just
as in the remote England of my birth-time, the sheep-witted
earl who could claim long descent from a king’s leman,
acquired at second-hand from the slums of London, was a
better man than I was. Such a personage was fawned upon
in Arthur’s realm and reverently looked up to by everybody,
even though his dispositions were as mean as his
intelligence, and his morals as base as his lineage. There
were times when HE could sit down in the king’s presence,
but I couldn’t. I could have got a title easily enough, and that
would have raised me a large step in everybody’s eyes; even
in the king’s, the giver of it. But I didn’t ask for it; and I
declined it when it was offered. I couldn’t have enjoyed such
a thing with my notions; and it wouldn’t have been fair,
anyway, because as far back as I could go, our tribe had
always been short of the bar sinister. I couldn’t have felt
really and satisfactorily fine and proud and set-up over any
title except one that should come from the nation itself, the
only legitimate source; and such an one I hoped to win; and
in the course of years of honest and honorable endeavor, I
did win it and did wear it with a high and clean pride. This
title fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one day, in a
village, was caught up as a happy thought and tossed from
mouth to mouth with a laugh and an affirmative vote; in ten
days it had swept the kingdom, and was become as familiar
as the king’s name. I was never known by any other
designation afterward, whether in the nation’s talk or in
grave debate upon matters of state at the council-board of
the sovereign. This title, translated into modern speech,
would be The Boss. Elected by the nation. That suited me.
And it was a pretty high title. There were very few The’s, and
I was one of them. If you spoke of the duke, or the earl, or
the bishop, how could anybody tell which one you meant?
But if you spoke of The King or The Queen or The Boss, it
was different.

Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him—respected

the office; at least respected it as much as I was capable of
respecting any unearned supremacy; but as men I looked
down upon him and his nobles—privately. And he and they
liked me, and respected my office; but as an animal, without
birth or sham title, they looked down upon me—and were not
particularly private about it, either. I didn’t charge for my
opinion about them, and they didn’t charge for their opinion
about me: the account was square, the books balanced,
everybody was satisfied.
Chapter IX. The Tournament
THEY were always having grand tournaments there at
Camelot; and very stirring and picturesque and ridiculous
human bull-fights they were, too, but just a little wearisome
to the practical mind. How ever, I was generally on hand—for
two reasons: a man must not hold himself aloof from the
things which his friends and his community have at heart if
he would be liked—especially as a statesman; and both as
business man and statesman I wanted to study the
tournament and see if I couldn’t invent an improvement on
it. That reminds me to remark, in passing, that the very first
official thing I did, in my administration—and it was on the
very first day of it, too—was to start a patent office; for I
knew that a country without a patent office and good patent
laws was just a crab, and couldn’t travel any way but
sideways or backways.

Things ran along, a tournament nearly every week; and now

and then the boys used to want me to take a hand—I mean
Sir Launcelot and the rest—but I said I would by and by; no
hurry yet, and too much government machinery to oil up and
set to rights and start a-going.

We had one tournament which was continued from day to

day during more than a week, and as many as five hundred
knights took part in it, from first to last. They were weeks
gathering. They came on horseback from everywhere; from
the very ends of the country, and even from beyond the sea;
and many brought ladies, and all brought squires and troops
of servants. It was a most gaudy and gorgeous crowd, as to
costumery, and very characteristic of the country and the
time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocent indecencies
of language, and happy-hearted indifference to morals. It
was fight or look on, all day and every day; and sing,
gamble, dance, carouse half the night every night. They had
a most noble good time. You never saw such people. Those
banks of beautiful ladies, shining in their barbaric splendors,
would see a knight sprawl from his horse in the lists with a
lance- shaft the thickness of your ankle clean through him
and the blood spouting, and instead of fainting they would
clap their hands and crowd each other for a better view; only
sometimes one would dive into her handkerchief, and look
ostentatiously broken-hearted, and then you could lay two to
one that there was a scandal there somewhere and she was
afraid the public hadn’t found it out.

The noise at night would have been annoying to me

ordinarily, but I didn’t mind it in the present circum stances,
because it kept me from hearing the quacks detaching legs
and arms from the day’s cripples. They ruined an uncommon
good old cross-cut saw for me, and broke the saw-buck, too,
but I let it pass. And as for my axe—well, I made up my mind
that the next time I lent an axe to a surgeon I would pick my
century.

I not only watched this tournament from day to day, but

detailed an intelligent priest from my Department of Public
Morals and Agriculture, and ordered him to report it; for it
was my purpose by and by, when I should have gotten the
people along far enough, to start a newspaper. The first thing
you want in a new country, is a patent office; then work up
your school system; and after that, out with your paper. A
newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them, but no matter,
it’s hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and don’t you
forget it. You can’t resurrect a dead nation without it; there
isn’t any way. So I wanted to sample things, and be finding
out what sort of reporter- material I might be able to rake
together out of the sixth century when I should come to need
it.

Well, the priest did very well, considering. He got in all the
details, and that is a good thing in a local item: you see, he
had kept books for the undertaker- department of his church
when he was younger, and there, you know, the money’s in
the details; the more details, the more swag: bearers,
mutes, candles, prayers—everything counts; and if the
bereaved don’t buy prayers enough you mark up your
candles with a forked pencil, and your bill shows up all right.
And he had a good knack at getting in the complimentary
thing here and there about a knight that was likely to
advertise—no, I mean a knight that had influence; and he
also had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his time he had
kept door for a pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked
miracles.

Of course this novice’s report lacked whoop and crash and

lurid description, and therefore wanted the true ring; but its
antique wording was quaint and sweet and simple, and full of
the fragrances and flavors of the time, and these little merits
made up in a measure for its more important lacks. Here is
an extract from it:

Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum,

knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and Sir
Tor, and Sir Tor smote down Sir Grummore Grummorsum to
the earth. Then came Sir Carados of the dolorous tower, and
Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and there encountered
with them Sir Percivale de Galis and Sir Lamorak de Galis,
that were two brethren, and there encountered Sir Percivale
with Sir Carados, and either brake their spears unto their
hands, and then Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of
them smote down other, horse and all, to the earth, and
either parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir
Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle, encountered
with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these four knights
encountered mightily, and brake their spears to their hands.
Then came Sir Pertolope from the castle, and there
encountered with him Sir Lionel, and there Sir Pertolope the
green knight smote down Sir Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot.
All this was marked by noble heralds, who bare him best, and
their names. Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir
Gareth, but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth.
When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him,
and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud gat
a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise Sir
Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother La Cote
Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and Sir Dodinas le
Savage; all these he bare down with one spear. When King
Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth fare so he marvelled
what he might be, that one time seemed green, and another
time, at his again coming, he seemed blue. And thus at every
course that he rode to and fro he changed his color, so that
there might neither king nor knight have ready cognizance
of him. Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered
with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from his
horse, saddle and all. And then came King Carados of
Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man.
And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the land of
Gore. And then there came in Six Bagdemagus, and Sir
Gareth smote him down horse and man to the earth. And
Bagdemagus’s son Meliganus brake a spear upon Sir Gareth
mightily and knightly. And then Sir Galahault the noble
prince cried on high, Knight with the many colors, well hast
thou justed; now make thee ready that I may just with thee.
Sir Gareth heard him, and he gat a great spear, and so they
encountered together, and there the prince brake his spear;
but Sir Gareth smote him upon the left side of the helm, that
he reeled here and there, and he had fallen down had not his
men recovered him. Truly, said King Arthur, that knight with
the many colors is a good knight. Wherefore the king called
unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him to encounter with
that knight. Sir, said Launcelot, I may as well find in my
heart for to forbear him at this time, for he hath had travail
enough this day, and when a good knight doth so well upon
some day, it is no good knight’s part to let him of his worship,
and, namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great
labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his quarrel is
here this day, and peradventure he is best beloved with this
lady of all that be here, for I see well he paineth himself and
enforceth him to do great deeds, and therefore, said Sir
Launcelot, as for me, this day he shall have the honour;
though it lay in my power to put him from it, I would not.

There was an unpleasant little episode that day, which for

reasons of state I struck out of my priest’s report. You will
have noticed that Garry was doing some great fighting in the
engagement. When I say Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry
was my private pet name for him; it suggests that I had a
deep affection for him, and that was the case. But it was a
private pet name only, and never spoken aloud to any one,
much less to him; being a noble, he would not have endured
a familiarity like that from me. Well, to proceed: I sat in the
private box set apart for me as the king’s minister. While Sir
Dinadan was waiting for his turn to enter the lists, he came
in there and sat down and began to talk; for he was always
making up to me, because I was a stranger and he liked to
have a fresh market for his jokes, the most of them having
reached that stage of wear where the teller has to do the
laughing himself while the other person looks sick. I had
always responded to his efforts as well as I could, and felt a
very deep and real kindness for him, too, for the reason that
if by malice of fate he knew the one particular anecdote
which I had heard oftenest and had most hated and most
loathed all my life, he had at least spared it me. It was one
which I had heard attributed to every humorous person who
had ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to
Artemus Ward. It was about a humorous lecturer who flooded
an ignorant audience with the killingest jokes for an hour
and never got a laugh; and then when he was leaving, some
gray simpletons wrung him gratefully by the hand and said it
had been the funniest thing they had ever heard, and “it was
all they could do to keep from laughin’ right out in meetin.’”
That anecdote never saw the day that it was worth the
telling; and yet I had sat under the telling of it hundreds and
thousands and millions and billions of times, and cried and
cursed all the way through. Then who can hope to know what
my feelings were, to hear this armor- plated ass start in on it
again, in the murky twilight of tradition, before the dawn of
history, while even Lactantius might be referred to as “the
late Lactantius,” and the Crusades wouldn’t be born for five
hundred years yet? Just as he finished, the call-boy came;
so, haw-hawing like a demon, he went rattling and clanking
out like a crate of loose castings, and I knew nothing more.
It was some minutes before I came to, and then I opened my
eyes just in time to see Sir Gareth fetch him an awful welt,
and I unconsciously out with the prayer, “I hope to gracious
he’s killed!” But by ill-luck, before I had got half through with
the words, Sir Gareth crashed into Sir Sagramor le Desirous
and sent him thundering over his horse’s crupper, and Sir
Sagramor caught my remark and thought I meant it for him.

Well, whenever one of those people got a thing into his head,
there was no getting it out again. I knew that, so I saved my
breath, and offered no explanations. As soon as Sir
Sagramor got well, he notified me that there was a little
account to settle between us, and he named a day three or
four years in the future; place of settlement, the lists where
the offense had been given. I said I would be ready when he
got back. You see, he was going for the Holy Grail. The boys
all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and then. It was a
several years’ cruise. They always put in the long absence
snooping around, in the most conscientious way, though
none of them had any idea where the Holy Grail really was,
and I don’t think any of them actually expected to find it, or
would have known what to do with it if he had run across it.
You see, it was just the Northwest Passage of that day, as
you may say; that was all. Every year expeditions went out
holy grailing, and next year relief expeditions went out to
hunt for them. There was worlds of reputation in it, but no
money. Why, they actually wanted me to put in! Well, I
should smile.
Chapter X. Beginnings of Civilization
THE Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and of course
it was a good deal discussed, for such things interested the
boys. The king thought I ought now to set forth in quest of
adventures, so that I might gain renown and be the more
worthy to meet Sir Sagramor when the several years should
have rolled away. I excused myself for the present; I said it
would take me three or four years yet to get things well fixed
up and going smoothly; then I should be ready; all the
chances were that at the end of that time Sir Sagramor
would still be out grailing, so no valuable time would be lost
by the postponement; I should then have been in office six
or seven years, and I believed my system and machinery
would be so well developed that I could take a holiday
without its working any harm.

I was pretty well satisfied with what I had already

accomplished. In various quiet nooks and corners I had the
beginnings of all sorts of industries under way—nuclei of
future vast factories, the iron and steel missionaries of my
future civilization. In these were gathered together the
brightest young minds I could find, and I kept agents out
raking the country for more, all the time. I was training a
crowd of ignorant folk into experts—experts in every sort of
handiwork and scientific calling. These nurseries of mine
went smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their
obscure country retreats, for nobody was allowed to come
into their precincts without a special permit—for I was afraid
of the Church.

I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sunday schools

the first thing; as a result, I now had an admirable system of
graded schools in full blast in those places, and also a
complete variety of Protestant congregations all in a
prosperous and growing condition. Everybody could be any
kind of a Christian he wanted to; there was perfect freedom
in that matter. But I confined public religious teaching to the
churches and the Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in
my other educational buildings. I could have given my own
sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian
without any trouble, but that would have been to affront a
law of human nature: spiritual wants and instincts are as
various in the human family as are physical appetites,
complexions, and features, and a man is only at his best,
morally, when he is equipped with the religious garment
whose color and shape and size most nicely accommodate
themselves to the spiritual complexion, angularities, and
stature of the individual who wears it; and, besides, I was
afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power, the
mightiest conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into
selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to
human liberty and paralysis to human thought.

All mines were royal property, and there were a good many
of them. They had formerly been worked as savages always
work mines—holes grubbed in the earth and the mineral
brought up in sacks of hide by hand, at the rate of a ton a
day; but I had begun to put the mining on a scientific basis
as early as I could.

Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when Sir

Sagramor’s challenge struck me.

Four years rolled by—and then! Well, you would never

imagine it in the world. Unlimited power is the ideal thing
when it is in safe hands. The despotism of heaven is the one
absolutely perfect government. An earthly despotism would
be the absolutely perfect earthly government, if the
conditions were the same, namely, the despot the perfectest
individual of the human race, and his lease of life perpetual.
But as a perishable perfect man must die, and leave his
despotism in the hands of an imperfect successor, an earthly
despotism is not merely a bad form of government, it is the
worst form that is possible.

My works showed what a despot could do with the resources

of a kingdom at his command. Unsuspected by this dark land,
I had the civilization of the nineteenth century booming
under its very nose! It was fenced away from the public view,
but there it was, a gigantic and unassailable fact—and to be
heard from, yet, if I lived and had luck. There it was, as sure
a fact and as substantial a fact as any serene volcano,
standing innocent with its smokeless summit in the blue sky
and giving no sign of the rising hell in its bowels. My schools
and churches were children four years before; they were
grown-up now; my shops of that day were vast factories
now; where I had a dozen trained men then, I had a
thousand now; where I had one brilliant expert then, I had
fifty now. I stood with my hand on the cock, so to speak,
ready to turn it on and flood the midnight world with light at
any moment. But I was not going to do the thing in that
sudden way. It was not my policy. The people could not have
stood it; and, moreover, I should have had the Established
Roman Catholic Church on my back in a minute.

No, I had been going cautiously all the while. I had had
confidential agents trickling through the country some time,
whose office was to undermine knighthood by imperceptible
degrees, and to gnaw a little at this and that and the other
superstition, and so prepare the way gradually for a better
order of things. I was turning on my light one-candle-power
at a time, and meant to continue to do so.

I had scattered some branch schools secretly about the

kingdom, and they were doing very well. I meant to work
this racket more and more, as time wore on, if nothing
occurred to frighten me. One of my deepest secrets was my
West Point—my military academy. I kept that most jealously
out of sight; and I did the same with my naval academy
which I had established at a remote seaport. Both were
prospering to my satisfaction.

Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my head executive,

my right hand. He was a darling; he was equal to anything;
there wasn’t anything he couldn’t turn his hand to. Of late I
had been training him for journalism, for the time seemed
about right for a start in the newspaper line; nothing big, but
just a small weekly for experimental circulation in my
civilization- nurseries. He took to it like a duck; there was an
editor concealed in him, sure. Already he had doubled
himself in one way; he talked sixth century and wrote
nineteenth. His journalistic style was climbing, steadily; it
was already up to the back settlement Alabama mark, and
couldn’t be told from the editorial output of that region either
by matter or flavor.

We had another large departure on hand, too. This was a

telegraph and a telephone; our first venture in this line.
These wires were for private service only, as yet, and must
be kept private until a riper day should come. We had a gang
of men on the road, working mainly by night. They were
stringing ground wires; we were afraid to put up poles, for
they would attract too much inquiry. Ground wires were good
enough, in both instances, for my wires were protected by an
insulation of my own invention which was perfect. My men
had orders to strike across country, avoiding roads, and
establishing connection with any considerable towns whose
lights betrayed their presence, and leaving experts in charge.
Nobody could tell you how to find any place in the kingdom,
for nobody ever went intentionally to any place, but only
struck it by accident in his wanderings, and then generally
left it without thinking to inquire what its name was. At one
time and another we had sent out topographical expeditions
to survey and map the kingdom, but the priests had always
interfered and raised trouble. So we had given the thing up,
for the present; it would be poor wisdom to antagonize the
Church.

As for the general condition of the country, it was as it had

been when I arrived in it, to all intents and purposes. I had
made changes, but they were necessarily slight, and they
were not noticeable. Thus far, I had not even meddled with
taxation, outside of the taxes which provided the royal
revenues. I had systematized those, and put the service on
an effective and righteous basis. As a result, these revenues
were already quadrupled, and yet the burden was so much
more equably distributed than before, that all the kingdom
felt a sense of relief, and the praises of my ad ministration
were hearty and general.

Personally, I struck an interruption, now, but I did not mind

it, it could not have happened at a better time. Earlier it
could have annoyed me, but now everything was in good
hands and swimming right along. The king had reminded me
several times, of late, that the postponement I had asked for,
four years before, had about run out now. It was a hint that I
ought to be starting out to seek adventures and get up a
reputation of a size to make me worthy of the honor of
breaking a lance with Sir Sagramor, who was still out
grailing, but was being hunted for by various relief
expeditions, and might be found any year, now. So you see I
was expecting this interruption; it did not take me by
surprise.
Chapter XI. The Yankee in Search of
Adventures
THERE never was such a country for wandering liars; and
they were of both sexes. Hardly a month went by without
one of these tramps arriving; and generally loaded with a
tale about some princess or other wanting help to get her out
of some far-away castle where she was held in captivity by a
lawless scoundrel, usually a giant. Now you would think that
the first thing the king would do after listening to such a
novelette from an entire stranger, would be to ask for
credentials—yes, and a pointer or two as to locality of castle,
best route to it, and so on. But nobody ever thought of so
simple and common-sense a thing at that. No, everybody
swallowed these people’s lies whole, and never asked a
question of any sort or about anything. Well, one day when I
was not around, one of these people came along—it was a
she one, this time—and told a tale of the usual pattern. Her
mistress was a captive in a vast and gloomy castle, along
with forty-four other young and beautiful girls, pretty much
all of them princesses; they had been languishing in that
cruel captivity for twenty-six years; the masters of the castle
were three stupendous brothers, each with four arms and
one eye—the eye in the center of the forehead, and as big as
a fruit. Sort of fruit not mentioned; their usual slovenliness
in statistics.

Would you believe it? The king and the whole Round Table
were in raptures over this preposterous opportunity for
adventure. Every knight of the Table jumped for the chance,
and begged for it; but to their vexation and chagrin the king
conferred it upon me, who had not asked for it at all.
By an effort, I contained my joy when Clarence brought me
the news. But he—he could not contain his. His mouth
gushed delight and gratitude in a steady discharge—delight
in my good fortune, gratitude to the king for this splendid
mark of his favor for me. He could keep neither his legs nor
his body still, but pirouetted about the place in an airy
ecstasy of happiness.

On my side, I could have cursed the kindness that conferred

upon me this benefaction, but I kept my vexation under the
surface for policy’s sake, and did what I could to let on to be
glad. Indeed, I SAID I was glad. And in a way it was true; I
was as glad as a person is when he is scalped.

Well, one must make the best of things, and not waste time
with useless fretting, but get down to business and see what
can be done. In all lies there is wheat among the chaff; I
must get at the wheat in this case: so I sent for the girl and
she came. She was a comely enough creature, and soft and
modest, but, if signs went for anything, she didn’t know as
much as a lady’s watch. I said:

“My dear, have you been questioned as to particulars?”

She said she hadn’t.

“Well, I didn’t expect you had, but I thought I would ask, to

make sure; it’s the way I’ve been raised. Now you mustn’t
take it unkindly if I remind you that as we don’t know you,
we must go a little slow. You may be all right, of course, and
we’ll hope that you are; but to take it for granted isn’t
business. you understand that. I’m obliged to ask you a few
questions; just answer up fair and square, and don’t be
afraid. Where do you live, when you are at home?”
“In the land of Moder, fair sir.”

“Land of Moder. I don’t remember hearing of it before.

Parents living?”

“As to that, I know not if they be yet on live, sith it is many

years that I have lain shut up in the castle.”

“Your name, please?”

“I hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, an it please

you.”

“Do you know anybody here who can identify you?”

“That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither now for
the first time.”

“Have you brought any letters—any documents—any proofs

that you are trustworthy and truthful?”

“Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have I not a

tongue, and cannot I say all that myself?”

“But your saying it, you know, and somebody else’s saying it,
is different.”

“Different? How might that be? I fear me I do not

understand.”

“Don’t understand? Land of—why, you see—you see—why,

great Scott, can’t you understand a little thing like that?
Can’t you understand the difference between your—WHY do
you look so innocent and idiotic!”

“I? In truth I know not, but an it were the will of God.”

“Yes, yes, I reckon that’s about the size of it. Don’t mind my
seeming excited; I’m not. Let us change the subject. Now as
to this castle, with forty- five princesses in it, and three
ogres at the head of it, tell me—where is this harem?”

“Harem?”

“The castle, you understand; where is the castle?”

“Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, and

lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues.”

“How many?”

“Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they are so many,
and do so lap the one upon the other, and being made all in
the same image and tincted with the same color, one may not
know the one league from its fellow, nor how to count them
except they be taken apart, and ye wit well it were God’s
work to do that, being not within man’s capacity; for ye will
note—”

“Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance;

whereabouts does the castle lie? What’s the direction from
here?”

“Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from here; by reason

that the road lieth not straight, but turneth evermore;
wherefore the direction of its place abideth not, but is some
time under the one sky and anon under another, whereso if
ye be minded that it is in the east, and wend thitherward, ye
shall observe that the way of the road doth yet again turn
upon itself by the space of half a circle, and this marvel
happing again and yet again and still again, it will grieve you
that you had thought by vanities of the mind to thwart and
bring to naught the will of Him that giveth not a castle a
direction from a place except it pleaseth Him, and if it please
Him not, will the rather that even all castles and all
directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the
places wherein they tarried desolate and vacant, so warning
His creatures that where He will He will, and where He will
not He—”

“Oh, that’s all right, that’s all right, give us a rest; never
mind about the direction, HANG the direction—I beg pardon,
I beg a thousand pardons, I am not well to-day; pay no
attention when I soliloquize, it is an old habit, an old, bad
habit, and hard to get rid of when one’s digestion is all
disordered with eating food that was raised forever and ever
before he was born; good land! a man can’t keep his
functions regular on spring chickens thirteen hundred years
old. But come—never mind about that; let’s—have you got
such a thing as a map of that region about you? Now a good
map—”

“Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of late the

unbelievers have brought from over the great seas, which,
being boiled in oil, and an onion and salt added thereto, doth
—”

“What, a map? What are you talking about? Don’t you know
what a map is? There, there, never mind, don’t explain, I
hate explanations; they fog a thing up so that you can’t tell
anything about it. Run along, dear; good-day; show her the
way, Clarence.”

Oh, well, it was reasonably plain, now, why these donkeys

didn’t prospect these liars for details. It may be that this girl
had a fact in her somewhere, but I don’t believe you could
have sluiced it out with a hydraulic; nor got it with the
earlier forms of blasting, even; it was a case for dynamite.
Why, she was a perfect ass; and yet the king and his knights
had listened to her as if she had been a leaf out of the
gospel. It kind of sizes up the whole party. And think of the
simple ways of this court: this wandering wench hadn’t any
more trouble to get access to the king in his palace than she
would have had to get into the poorhouse in my day and
country. In fact, he was glad to see her, glad to hear her tale;
with that adventure of hers to offer, she was as welcome as a
corpse is to a coroner.

Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence came

back. I remarked upon the barren result of my efforts with
the girl; hadn’t got hold of a single point that could help me
to find the castle. The youth looked a little surprised, or
puzzled, or something, and intimated that he had been
wondering to himself what I had wanted to ask the girl all
those questions for.

“Why, great guns,” I said, “don’t I want to find the castle?

And how else would I go about it?”

“La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer that, I

ween. She will go with thee. They always do. She will ride
with thee.”

“Ride with me? Nonsense!”

“But of a truth she will. She will ride with thee. Thou shalt
see.”

“What? She browse around the hills and scour the woods
with me—alone—and I as good as engaged to be married?
Why, it’s scandalous. Think how it would look.”
My, the dear face that rose before me! The boy was eager to
know all about this tender matter. I swore him to secresy and
then whispered her name—”Puss Flanagan.” He looked
disappointed, and said he didn’t remember the countess. How
natural it was for the little courtier to give her a rank. He
asked me where she lived.

“In East Har—” I came to myself and stopped, a little

confused; then I said, “Never mind, now; I’ll tell you some
time.”

And might he see her? Would I let him see her some day?

It was but a little thing to promise—thirteen hundred years

or so—and he so eager; so I said Yes. But I sighed; I couldn’t
help it. And yet there was no sense in sighing, for she wasn’t
born yet. But that is the way we are made: we don’t reason,
where we feel; we just feel.

My expedition was all the talk that day and that night, and
the boys were very good to me, and made much of me, and
seemed to have forgotten their vexation and disappointment,
and come to be as anxious for me to hive those ogres and set
those ripe old virgins loose as if it were themselves that had
the contract. Well, they were good children—but just
children, that is all. And they gave me no end of points about
how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them in; and they
told me all sorts of charms against enchantments, and gave
me salves and other rubbish to put on my wounds. But it
never occurred to one of them to reflect that if I was such a
wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be, I ought
not to need salves or instructions, or charms against
enchantments, and, least of all, arms and armor, on a foray
of any kind—even against fire-spouting dragons, and devils
hot from perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as these I
was after, these commonplace ogres of the back settlements.

I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that

was the usual way; but I had the demon’s own time with my
armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get
into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or
two of blanket around your body, for a sort of cushion and to
keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt
of chain mail—these are made of small steel links woven
together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss
your shirt onto the floor, it slumps into a pile like a peck of
wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the
uncomfortablest material in the world for a night shirt, yet
plenty used it for that—tax collectors, and reformers, and
one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of
people; then you put on your shoes—flat-boats roofed over
with interleaving bands of steel—and screw your clumsy
spurs into the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your
legs, and your cuisses on your thighs; then come your
backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to feel
crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate the half-
petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs
down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit
down, and isn’t any real improvement on an inverted coal
scuttle, either for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands
on; next you belt on your sword; then you put your stove-
pipe joints onto your arms, your iron gauntlets onto your
hands, your iron rat-trap onto your head, with a rag of steel
web hitched onto it to hang over the back of your neck—and
there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould. This is no
time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that is a
nut that isn’t worth the cracking, there is so little of the
meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.
The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as we
finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as
not I hadn’t chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip.
How stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand. He had
on his head a conical steel casque that only came down to his
ears, and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended
down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest
of him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain mail, trousers
and all. But pretty much all of him was hidden under his
outside garment, which of course was of chain mail, as I said,
and hung straight from his shoulders to his ankles; and from
his middle to the bottom, both before and behind, was
divided, so that he could ride and let the skirts hang down on
each side. He was going grailing, and it was just the outfit for
it, too. I would have given a good deal for that ulster, but it
was too late now to be fooling around. The sun was just up,
the king and the court were all on hand to see me off and
wish me luck; so it wouldn’t be etiquette for me to tarry. You
don’t get on your horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would
get disappointed. They carry you out, just as they carry a
sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and help
get you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the
while you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody
else—like somebody that has been married on a sudden, or
struck by lightning, or something like that, and hasn’t quite
fetched around yet, and is sort of numb, and can’t just get
his bearings. Then they stood up the mast they called a
spear, in its socket by my left foot, and I gripped it with my
hand; lastly they hung my shield around my neck, and I was
all complete and ready to up anchor and get to sea.
Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and a maid of
honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was
nothing more to do now, but for that damsel to get up behind
me on a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around
me to hold on.

And so we started, and everybody gave us a good-bye and

waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And everybody we
met, going down the hill and through the village was
respectful to us, except some shabby little boys on the
outskirts. They said:

“Oh, what a guy!” And hove clods at us.

In my experience boys are the same in all ages. They don’t

respect anything, they don’t care for any thing or anybody.
They say “Go up, baldhead” to the prophet going his
unoffending way in the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the
holy gloom of the Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the
same way in Buchanan’s administration; I remember,
because I was there and helped. The prophet had his bears
and settled with his boys; and I wanted to get down and
settle with mine, but it wouldn’t answer, because I couldn’t
have got up again. I hate a country without a derrick.
Chapter XII. Slow Torture
STRAIGHT off, we were in the country. It was most lovely
and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool
morning in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we
saw fair green valleys lying spread out below, with streams
winding through them, and island groves of trees here and
there, and huge lonely oaks scattered about and casting
black blots of shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the
ranges of hills, blue with haze, stretching away in billowy
perspective to the horizon, with at wide intervals a dim fleck
of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we knew was a
castle. We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew,
and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no
sound of footfall; we dreamed along through glades in a mist
of green light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of
leaves overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of
runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making
a sort of whispering music, comfortable to hear; and at times
we left the world behind and entered into the solemn great
deeps and rich gloom of the forest, where furtive wild things
whisked and scurried by and were gone before you could
even get your eye on the place where the noise was; and
where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting to
business with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a
mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a
tree trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable
remotenesses of the woods. And by and by out we would
swing again into the glare.

About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out into
the glare—it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours
or so after sun-up—it wasn’t as pleas ant as it had been. It
was beginning to get hot. This was quite noticeable. We had
a very long pull, after that, without any shade. Now it is
curious how progressively little frets grow and multiply after
they once get a start. Things which I didn’t mind at all, at
first, I began to mind now—and more and more, too, all the
time. The first ten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief
I didn’t seem to care; I got along, and said never mind, it
isn’t any matter, and dropped it out of my mind. But now it
was different; I wanted it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag,
right along, and no rest; I couldn’t get it out of my mind; and
so at last I lost my temper and said hang a man that would
make a suit of armor without any pockets in it. You see I had
my handkerchief in my helmet; and some other things; but it
was that kind of a helmet that you can’t take off by yourself.
That hadn’t occurred to me when I put it there; and in fact I
didn’t know it. I supposed it would be particularly convenient
there. And so now, the thought of its being there, so handy
and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the worse
and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that you can’t get is
the thing that you want, mainly; every one has noticed that.
Well, it took my mind off from every thing else; took it clear
off, and centered it in my helmet; and mile after mile, there
it stayed, imagining the handkerchief, picturing the
handkerchief; and it was bitter and aggravating to have the
salt sweat keep trickling down into my eyes, and I couldn’t
get at it. It seems like a little thing, on paper, but it was not
a little thing at all; it was the most real kind of misery. I
would not say it if it was not so. I made up my mind that I
would carry along a reticule next time, let it look how it
might, and people say what they would. Of course these iron
dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous, and
maybe raise Sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort
first, and style after wards. So we jogged along, and now and
then we struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in
clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze and cry;
and of course I said things I oughtn’t to have said, I don’t
deny that. I am not better than others.

We couldn’t seem to meet anybody in this lone some Britain,

not even an ogre; and, in the mood I was in then, it was well
for the ogre; that is, an ogre with a handkerchief. Most
knights would have thought of nothing but getting his armor;
but so I got his bandanna, he could keep his hardware, for all
of me.

Meantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in there. You see,

the sun was beating down and warming up the iron more and
more all the time. Well, when you are hot, that way, every
little thing irritates you. When I trotted, I rattled like a crate
of dishes, and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn’t
seem to stand that shield slatting and banging, now about
my breast, now around my back; and if I dropped into a walk
my joints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that
a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn’t create any breeze at
that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; and besides,
the quieter you went the heavier the iron settled down on
you and the more and more tons you seemed to weigh every
minute. And you had to be always changing hands, and
passing your spear over to the other foot, it got so irksome
for one hand to hold it long at a time.

Well, you know, when you perspire that way, in rivers, there
comes a time when you—when you—well, when you itch. You
are inside, your hands are outside; so there you are; nothing
but iron between. It is not a light thing, let it sound as it
may. First it is one place; then another; then some more;
and it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the
territory is all occupied, and nobody can imagine what you
feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And when it had got to the
worst, and it seemed to me that I could not stand anything
more, a fly got in through the bars and settled on my nose,
and the bars were stuck and wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t
get the visor up; and I could only shake my head, which was
baking hot by this time, and the fly—well, you know how a
fly acts when he has got a certainty—he only minded the
shaking enough to change from nose to lip, and lip to ear,
and buzz and buzz all around in there, and keep on lighting
and biting, in a way that a person, already so distressed as I
was, simply could not stand. So I gave in, and got Alisande to
unship the helmet and relieve me of it. Then she emptied the
conveniences out of it and fetched it full of water, and I drank
and then stood up, and she poured the rest down inside the
armor. One cannot think how refreshing it was. She
continued to fetch and pour until I was well soaked and
thoroughly comfortable.

It was good to have a rest—and peace. But nothing is quite

perfect in this life, at any time. I had made a pipe a while
back, and also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing,
but what some of the Indians use: the inside bark of the
willow, dried. These comforts had been in the helmet, and
now I had them again, but no matches.

Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was

borne in upon my understanding—that we were weather-
bound. An armed novice cannot mount his horse without
help and plenty of it. Sandy was not enough; not enough for
me, anyway. We had to wait until somebody should come
along. Waiting, in silence, would have been agreeable
enough, for I was full of matter for reflection, and wanted to
give it a chance to work. I wanted to try and think out how it
was that rational or even half-rational men could ever have
learned to wear armor, considering its inconveniences; and
how they had managed to keep up such a fashion for
generations when it was plain that what I had suffered to-
day they had had to suffer all the days of their lives. I
wanted to think that out; and more-over I wanted to think
out some way to reform this evil and persuade the people to
let the foolish fashion die out; but thinking was out of the
question in the circumstances. You couldn’t think, where
Sandy was.

She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, but she

had a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill, and made
your head sore like the drays and wagons in a city. If she had
had a cork she would have been a comfort. But you can’t
cork that kind; they would die. Her clack was going all day,
and you would think something would surely happen to her
works, by and by; but no, they never got out of order; and
she never had to slack up for words. She could grind, and
pump, and churn, and buzz by the week, and never stop to
oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just nothing but
wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has.
She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw,
talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber; but just as good as she
could be. I hadn’t minded her mill that morning, on account
of having that hornets’ nest of other troubles; but more than
once in the afternoon I had to say:

“Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the domestic
air, the kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow,
and it’s a low enough treasury without that.”
Chapter XIII. Freemen
YES, it is strange how little a while at a time a person can be
contented. Only a little while back, when I was riding and
suffering, what a heaven this peace, this rest, this sweet
serenity in this secluded shady nook by this purling stream
would have seemed, where I could keep perfectly
comfortable all the time by pouring a dipper of water into my
armor now and then; yet already I was getting dissatisfied;
partly because I could not light my pipe—for, although I had
long ago started a match factory, I had forgotten to bring
matches with me—and partly because we had nothing to eat.
Here was another illustration of the childlike improvidence of
this age and people. A man in armor always trusted to
chance for his food on a journey, and would have been
scandalized at the idea of hanging a basket of sandwiches on
his spear. There was probably not a knight of all the Round
Table combination who would not rather have died than been
caught carrying such a thing as that on his flagstaff. And yet
there could not be anything more sensible. It had been my
intention to smuggle a couple of sandwiches into my helmet,
but I was interrupted in the act, and had to make an excuse
and lay them aside, and a dog got them.

Night approached, and with it a storm. The darkness came on

fast. We must camp, of course. I found a good shelter for the
demoiselle under a rock, and went off and found another for
myself. But I was obliged to remain in my armor, because I
could not get it off by myself and yet could not allow Alisande
to help, because it would have seemed so like undressing
before folk. It would not have amounted to that in reality,
because I had clothes on underneath; but the prejudices of
one’s breeding are not gotten rid of just at a jump, and I
knew that when it came to stripping off that bob-tailed iron
petticoat I should be embarrassed.

With the storm came a change of weather; and the stronger

the wind blew, and the wilder the rain lashed around, the
colder and colder it got. Pretty soon, various kinds of bugs
and ants and worms and things began to flock in out of the
wet and crawl down in side my armor to get warm; and while
some of them behaved well enough, and snuggled up
amongst my clothes and got quiet, the majority were of a
restless, uncomfortable sort, and never stayed still, but went
on prowling and hunting for they did not know what;
especially the ants, which went tickling along in wearisome
procession from one end of me to the other by the hour, and
are a kind of creatures which I never wish to sleep with
again. It would be my advice to persons situated in this way,
to not roll or thrash around, because this excites the interest
of all the different sorts of animals and makes every last one
of them want to turn out and see what is going on, and this
makes things worse than they were before, and of course
makes you objurgate harder, too, if you can. Still, if one did
not roll and thrash around he would die; so perhaps it is as
well to do one way as the other; there is no real choice. Even
after I was frozen solid I could still distinguish that tickling,
just as a corpse does when he is taking electric treatment. I
said I would never wear armor after this trip.

All those trying hours whilst I was frozen and yet was in a
living fire, as you may say, on account of that swarm of
crawlers, that same unanswerable question kept circling and
circling through my tired head: How do people stand this
miserable armor? How have they managed to stand it all
these generations? How can they sleep at night for dreading
the tortures of next day?
When the morning came at last, I was in a bad enough
plight: seedy, drowsy, fagged, from want of sleep; weary
from thrashing around, famished from long fasting; pining
for a bath, and to get rid of the animals; and crippled with
rheumatism. And how had it fared with the nobly born, the
titled aristocrat, the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise? Why,
she was as fresh as a squirrel; she had slept like the dead;
and as for a bath, probably neither she nor any other noble
in the land had ever had one, and so she was not missing it.
Measured by modern standards, they were merely modified
savages, those people. This noble lady showed no impatience
to get to breakfast—and that smacks of the savage, too. On
their journeys those Britons were used to long fasts, and
knew how to bear them; and also how to freight up against
probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian
and the anaconda. As like as not, Sandy was loaded for a
three-day stretch.

We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limping along

behind. In half an hour we came upon a group of ragged poor
creatures who had assembled to mend the thing which was
regarded as a road. They were as humble as animals to me;
and when I pro posed to breakfast with them, they were so
flattered, so overwhelmed by this extraordinary
condescension of mine that at first they were not able to
believe that I was in earnest. My lady put up her scornful lip
and withdrew to one side; she said in their hearing that she
would as soon think of eating with the other cattle—a remark
which embarrassed these poor devils merely because it
referred to them, and not because it insulted or offended
them, for it didn’t. And yet they were not slaves, not
chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen.
Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of
just their class and degree: small “independent” farmers,
artisans, etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the
actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or
worth saving, or really respect-worthy, and to subtract them
would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind
some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and
gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of
wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any
rationally constructed world. And yet, by ingenious
contrivance, this gilded minority, in stead of being in the tail
of the procession where it be longed, was marching head up
and banners flying, at the other end of it; had elected itself
to be the Nation, and these innumerable clams had permitted
it so long that they had come at last to accept it as a truth;
and not only that, but to believe it right and as it should be.
The priests had told their fathers and themselves that this
ironical state of things was ordained of God; and so, not
reflecting upon how unlike God it would be to amuse himself
with sarcasms, and especially such poor transparent ones as
this, they had dropped the matter there and become
respectfully quiet.

The talk of these meek people had a strange enough sound

in a formerly American ear. They were freemen, but they
could not leave the estates of their lord or their bishop
without his permission; they could not prepare their own
bread, but must have their corn ground and their bread
baked at his mill and his bakery, and pay roundly for the
same; they could not sell a piece of their own property
without paying him a handsome percentage of the proceeds,
nor buy a piece of somebody else’s without remembering him
in cash for the privilege; they had to harvest his grain for
him gratis, and be ready to come at a moment’s notice,
leaving their own crop to destruction by the threatened
storm; they had to let him plant fruit trees in their fields,
and then keep their indignation to themselves when his
heedless fruit-gatherers trampled the grain around the trees;
they had to smother their anger when his hunting parties
galloped through their fields laying waste the result of their
patient toil; they were not allowed to keep doves
themselves, and when the swarms from my lord’s dovecote
settled on their crops they must not lose their temper and
kill a bird, for awful would the penalty be; when the harvest
was at last gathered, then came the procession of robbers to
levy their blackmail upon it: first the Church carted off its fat
tenth, then the king’s commissioner took his twentieth, then
my lord’s people made a mighty inroad upon the remainder;
after which, the skinned freeman had liberty to bestow the
remnant in his barn, in case it was worth the trouble; there
were taxes, and taxes, and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes
again, and yet other taxes—upon this free and independent
pauper, but none upon his lord the baron or the bishop, none
upon the wasteful nobility or the all-devouring Church; if the
baron would sleep unvexed, the freeman must sit up all night
after his day’s work and whip the ponds to keep the frogs
quiet; if the freeman’s daughter—but no, that last infamy of
monarchical government is un printable; and finally, if the
freeman, grown desperate with his tortures, found his life
unendurable under such conditions, and sacrificed it and fled
to death for mercy and refuge, the gentle Church condemned
him to eternal fire, the gentle law buried him at midnight at
the cross-roads with a stake through his back, and his
master the baron or the bishop confiscated all his property
and turned his widow and his orphans out of doors.

And here were these freemen assembled in the early

morning to work on their lord the bishop’s road three days
each—gratis; every head of a family, and every son of a
family, three days each, gratis, and a day or so added for
their servants. Why, it was like reading about France and the
French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution,
which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one
swift tidal-wave of blood—one: a settlement of that hoary
debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each
hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of
that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong
and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated
but in hell. There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but
remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot
passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted
mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the
one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other
upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the
“horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to
speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe,
compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult,
cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning
compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city
cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror
which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and
mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins
filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter
and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in
its vastness or pity as it deserves.

These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing their

breakfast and their talk with me, were as full of humble
reverence for their king and Church and nobility as their
worst enemy could desire. There was some thing pitifully
ludicrous about it. I asked them if they supposed a nation of
people ever existed, who, with a free vote in every man’s
hand, would elect that a single family and its descendants
should reign over it forever, whether gifted or boobies, to the
exclusion of all other families—including the voter’s; and
would also elect that a certain hundred families should be
raised to dizzy summits of rank, and clothed on with
offensive transmissible glories and privileges to the exclusion
of the rest of the nation’s families—including his own.

They all looked unhit, and said they didn’t know; that they
had never thought about it before, and it hadn’t ever
occurred to them that a nation could be so situated that
every man could have a say in the government. I said I had
seen one—and that it would last until it had an Established
Church. Again they were all unhit—at first. But presently one
man looked up and asked me to state that proposition again;
and state it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding. I
did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he brought his
fist down and said he didn’t believe a nation where every
man had a vote would voluntarily get down in the mud and
dirt in any such way; and that to steal from a nation its will
and preference must be a crime and the first of all crimes. I
said to myself:

“This one’s a man. If I were backed by enough of his sort, I

would make a strike for the welfare of this country, and try
to prove myself its loyalest citizen by making a wholesome
change in its system of government.”

You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not

to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real
thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing
to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are
extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can
wear out, be come ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to
protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal
to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—
that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to
monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it.
I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares “that all
political power is inherent in the people, and all free
governments are founded on their authority and instituted
for their benefit; and that they have at all times an
undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of
government in such a manner as they may think expedient.”

Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the
commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds
his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he
is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees
this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate
anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if
they do not see the matter as he does.

And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how

the country should be governed was restricted to six persons
in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and
ninety-four to express dis satisfaction with the regnant
system and propose to change it, would have made the
whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so
disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. So to
speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation where
nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all
the money and did all the work, and the other six elected
themselves a permanent board of direction and took all the
dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and
ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal. The thing that
would have best suited the circus side of my nature would
have been to resign the Boss-ship and get up an insurrection
and turn it into a revolution; but I knew that the Jack Cade
or the Wat Tyler who tries such a thing without first
educating his materials up to revolution grade is almost
absolutely certain to get left. I had never been accustomed
to getting left, even if I do say it myself. Wherefore, the
“deal” which had been for some time working into shape in
my mind was of a quite different pattern from the Cade-Tyler
sort.

So I did not talk blood and insurrection to that man there

who sat munching black bread with that abused and
mistaught herd of human sheep, but took him aside and
talked matter of another sort to him. After I had finished, I
got him to lend me a little ink from his veins; and with this
and a sliver I wrote on a piece of bark—

Put him in the Man-factory—

and gave it to him, and said:

“Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it into the hands of

Amyas le Poulet, whom I call Clarence, and he will
understand.”

“He is a priest, then,” said the man, and some of the

enthusiasm went out of his face.

“How—a priest? Didn’t I tell you that no chattel of the

Church, no bond-slave of pope or bishop can enter my Man-
Factory? Didn’t I tell you that YOU couldn’t enter unless your
religion, whatever it might be, was your own free property?”

“Marry, it is so, and for that I was glad; wherefore it liked me

not, and bred in me a cold doubt, to hear of this priest being
there.”

“But he isn’t a priest, I tell you.”

The man looked far from satisfied. He said:

“He is not a priest, and yet can read?”

“He is not a priest and yet can read—yes, and write, too, for
that matter. I taught him myself.” The man’s face cleared.
“And it is the first thing that you yourself will be taught in
that Factory—”

“I? I would give blood out of my heart to know that art. Why,
I will be your slave, your—”

“No you won’t, you won’t be anybody’s slave. Take your

family and go along. Your lord the bishop will confiscate your
small property, but no matter. Clarence will fix you all right.”
Chapter XIV. “Defend Thee, Lord”
I PAID three pennies for my breakfast, and a most
extravagant price it was, too, seeing that one could have
breakfasted a dozen persons for that money; but I was
feeling good by this time, and I had always been a kind of
spendthrift anyway; and then these people had wanted to
give me the food for nothing, scant as their provision was,
and so it was a grateful pleasure to emphasize my
appreciation and sincere thankfulness with a good big
financial lift where the money would do so much more good
than it would in my helmet, where, these pennies being
made of iron and not stinted in weight, my half-dollar’s worth
was a good deal of a burden to me. I spent money rather too
freely in those days, it is true; but one reason for it was that
I hadn’t got the proportions of things entirely adjusted, even
yet, after so long a sojourn in Britain—hadn’t got along to
where I was able to absolutely realize that a penny in
Arthur’s land and a couple of dollars in Connecticut were
about one and the same thing: just twins, as you may say, in
purchasing power. If my start from Camelot could have been
delayed a very few days I could have paid these people in
beautiful new coins from our own mint, and that would have
pleased me; and them, too, not less. I had adopted the
American values exclusively. In a week or two now, cents,
nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, and also a trifle of
gold, would be trickling in thin but steady streams all
through the commercial veins of the kingdom, and I looked
to see this new blood freshen up its life.

The farmers were bound to throw in something, to sort of

offset my liberality, whether I would or no; so I let them give
me a flint and steel; and as soon as they had comfortably
bestowed Sandy and me on our horse, I lit my pipe. When
the first blast of smoke shot out through the bars of my
helmet, all those people broke for the woods, and Sandy
went over backwards and struck the ground with a dull thud.
They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons they
had heard so much about from knights and other
professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade those
people to venture back within explaining distance. Then I
told them that this was only a bit of enchantment which
would work harm to none but my enemies. And I promised,
with my hand on my heart, that if all who felt no enmity
toward me would come forward and pass before me they
should see that only those who remained behind would be
struck dead. The procession moved with a good deal of
promptness. There were no casualties to report, for nobody
had curiosity enough to remain behind to see what would
happen.

I lost some time, now, for these big children, their fears
gone, became so ravished with wonder over my awe-
compelling fireworks that I had to stay there and smoke a
couple of pipes out before they would let me go. Still the
delay was not wholly unproductive, for it took all that time to
get Sandy thoroughly wonted to the new thing, she being so
close to it, you know. It plugged up her conversation mill,
too, for a considerable while, and that was a gain. But above
all other benefits accruing, I had learned something. I was
ready for any giant or any ogre that might come along, now.

We tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my

opportunity came about the middle of the next after noon.
We were crossing a vast meadow by way of short-cut, and I
was musing absently, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, when
Sandy suddenly interrupted a remark which she had begun
that morning, with the cry:

“Defend thee, lord!—peril of life is toward!”

And she slipped down from the horse and ran a little way and
stood. I looked up and saw, far off in the shade of a tree, half
a dozen armed knights and their squires; and straightway
there was bustle among them and tightening of saddle-girths
for the mount. My pipe was ready and would have been lit, if
I had not been lost in thinking about how to banish
oppression from this land and restore to all its people their
stolen rights and manhood without disobliging anybody. I lit
up at once, and by the time I had got a good head of
reserved steam on, here they came. All together, too; none
of those chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much
about—one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest standing by
to see fair play. No, they came in a body, they came with a
whirr and a rush, they came like a volley from a battery;
came with heads low down, plumes streaming out behind,
lances advanced at a level. It was a handsome sight, a
beautiful sight—for a man up a tree. I laid my lance in rest
and waited, with my heart beating, till the iron wave was just
ready to break over me, then spouted a column of white
smoke through the bars of my helmet. You should have seen
the wave go to pieces and scatter! This was a finer sight than
the other one.

But these people stopped, two or three hundred yards away,

and this troubled me. My satisfaction collapsed, and fear
came; I judged I was a lost man. But Sandy was radiant; and
was going to be eloquent—but I stopped her, and told her my
magic had miscarried, somehow or other, and she must
mount, with all despatch, and we must ride for life. No, she
wouldn’t. She said that my enchantment had disabled those
knights; they were not riding on, because they couldn’t;
wait, they would drop out of their saddles presently, and we
would get their horses and harness. I could not deceive such
trusting simplicity, so I said it was a mistake; that when my
fireworks killed at all, they killed instantly; no, the men
would not die, there was something wrong about my
apparatus, I couldn’t tell what; but we must hurry and get
away, for those people would attack us again, in a minute.
Sandy laughed, and said:

“Lack-a-day, sir, they be not of that breed! Sir Launcelot will

give battle to dragons, and will abide by them, and will assail
them again, and yet again, and still again, until he do
conquer and destroy them; and so likewise will Sir Pellinore
and Sir Aglovale and Sir Carados, and mayhap others, but
there be none else that will venture it, let the idle say what
the idle will. And, la, as to yonder base rufflers, think ye they
have not their fill, but yet desire more?”

“Well, then, what are they waiting for? Why don’t they
leave? Nobody’s hindering. Good land, I’m willing to let
bygones be bygones, I’m sure.”

“Leave, is it? Oh, give thyself easement as to that. They

dream not of it, no, not they. They wait to yield them.”

“Come—really, is that ‘sooth’—as you people say? If they

want to, why don’t they?”

“It would like them much; but an ye wot how dragons are
esteemed, ye would not hold them blamable. They fear to
come.”

“Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and—”

“Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming. I will go.”
And she did. She was a handy person to have along on a
raid. I would have considered this a doubtful errand, myself.
I presently saw the knights riding away, and Sandy coming
back. That was a relief. I judged she had somehow failed to
get the first innings—I mean in the conversation; otherwise
the interview wouldn’t have been so short. But it turned out
that she had managed the business well; in fact, admirably.
She said that when she told those people I was The Boss, it
hit them where they lived: “smote them sore with fear and
dread” was her word; and then they were ready to put up
with anything she might require. So she swore them to
appear at Arthur’s court within two days and yield them, with
horse and harness, and be my knights henceforth, and
subject to my command. How much better she managed that
thing than I should have done it myself! She was a daisy.
Chapter XV. Sandy’s Tale
AND so I’m proprietor of some knights,” said I, as we rode
off. “Who would ever have supposed that I should live to list
up assets of that sort. I shan’t know what to do with them;
unless I raffle them off. How many of them are there,
Sandy?”

“Seven, please you, sir, and their squires.”

“It is a good haul. Who are they? Where do they hang out?”

“Where do they hang out?”

“Yes, where do they live?”

“Ah, I understood thee not. That will I tell eftsoons.” Then

she said musingly, and softly, turning the words daintily over
her tongue: “Hang they out—hang they out—where hang—
where do they hang out; eh, right so; where do they hang
out. Of a truth the phrase hath a fair and winsome grace,
and is prettily worded withal. I will repeat it anon and anon
in mine idlesse, whereby I may peradventure learn it. Where
do they hang out. Even so! already it falleth trippingly from
my tongue, and forasmuch as—”

“Don’t forget the cowboys, Sandy.”

“Cowboys?”

“Yes; the knights, you know: You were going to tell me about
them. A while back, you remember. Figuratively speaking,
game’s called.”

“Game—”
“Yes, yes, yes! Go to the bat. I mean, get to work on your
statistics, and don’t burn so much kindling getting your fire
started. Tell me about the knights.”

“I will well, and lightly will begin. So they two departed and
rode into a great forest. And—”

“Great Scott!”

You see, I recognized my mistake at once. I had set her

works a-going; it was my own fault; she would be thirty days
getting down to those facts. And she generally began without
a preface and finished without a result. If you interrupted
her she would either go right along without noticing, or
answer with a couple of words, and go back and say the
sentence over again. So, interruptions only did harm; and
yet I had to interrupt, and interrupt pretty frequently, too, in
order to save my life; a person would die if he let her
monotony drip on him right along all day.

“Great Scott! “ I said in my distress. She went right back and

began over again:

“So they two departed and rode into a great forest. And—”

“Which two?”

“Sir Gawaine and Sir Uwaine. And so they came to an abbey

of monks, and there were well lodged. So on the morn they
heard their masses in the abbey, and so they rode forth till
they came to a great forest; then was Sir Gawaine ware in a
valley by a turret, of twelve fair damsels, and two knights
armed on great horses, and the damsels went to and fro by a
tree. And then was Sir Gawaine ware how there hung a
white shield on that tree, and ever as the damsels came by it
they spit upon it, and some threw mire upon the shield—”

“Now, if I hadn’t seen the like myself in this country, Sandy, I

wouldn’t believe it. But I’ve seen it, and I can just see those
creatures now, parading before that shield and acting like
that. The women here do certainly act like all possessed. Yes,
and I mean your best, too, society’s very choicest brands.
The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire
could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the
highest duchess in Arthur’s land.”

“Hello-girl?”

“Yes, but don’t you ask me to explain; it’s a new kind of a

girl; they don’t have them here; one often speaks sharply to
them when they are not the least in fault, and he can’t get
over feeling sorry for it and ashamed of himself in thirteen
hundred years, it’s such shabby mean conduct and so
unprovoked; the fact is, no gentleman ever does it—though I
—well, I myself, if I’ve got to confess—”

“Peradventure she—”

“Never mind her; never mind her; I tell you I couldn’t ever
explain her so you would understand.”

“Even so be it, sith ye are so minded. Then Sir Gawaine and

Sir Uwaine went and saluted them, and asked them why they
did that despite to the shield. Sirs, said the damsels, we shall
tell you. There is a knight in this country that owneth this
white shield, and he is a passing good man of his hands, but
he hateth all ladies and gentlewomen, and therefore we do
all this despite to the shield. I will say you, said Sir Gawaine,
it beseemeth evil a good knight to despise all ladies and
gentlewomen, and peradventure though he hate you he hath
some cause, and peradventure he loveth in some other
places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved again, and
he such a man of prowess as ye speak of—”

“Man of prowess—yes, that is the man to please them,

Sandy. Man of brains—that is a thing they never think of.
Tom Sayers—John Heenan—John L. Sullivan—pity but you
could be here. You would have your legs under the Round
Table and a ‘Sir’ in front of your names within the twenty-
four hours; and you could bring about a new distribution of
the married princesses and duchesses of the Court in another
twenty-four. The fact is, it is just a sort of polished-up court
of Comanches, and there isn’t a squaw in it who doesn’t
stand ready at the dropping of a hat to desert to the buck
with the biggest string of scalps at his belt.”

“—and he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of, said Sir

Gawaine. Now, what is his name? Sir, said they, his name is
Marhaus the king’s son of Ireland.”

“Son of the king of Ireland, you mean; the other form

doesn’t mean anything. And look out and hold on tight, now,
we must jump this gully.... There, we are all right now. This
horse belongs in the circus; he is born before his time.”

“I know him well, said Sir Uwaine, he is a passing good

knight as any is on live.”

“On live. If you’ve got a fault in the world, Sandy, it is that

you are a shade too archaic. But it isn’t any matter.”

“—for I saw him once proved at a justs where many knights

were gathered, and that time there might no man withstand
him. Ah, said Sir Gawaine, damsels, methinketh ye are to
blame, for it is to suppose he that hung that shield there will
not be long therefrom, and then may those knights match
him on horseback, and that is more your worship than thus;
for I will abide no longer to see a knight’s shield dishonored.
And therewith Sir Uwaine and Sir Gawaine departed a little
from them, and then were they ware where Sir Marhaus
came riding on a great horse straight toward them. And
when the twelve damsels saw Sir Marhaus they fled into the
turret as they were wild, so that some of them fell by the
way. Then the one of the knights of the tower dressed his
shield, and said on high, Sir Marhaus defend thee. And so
they ran together that the knight brake his spear on
Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus smote him so hard that he brake
his neck and the horse’s back—”

“Well, that is just the trouble about this state of things, it

ruins so many horses.”

“That saw the other knight of the turret, and dressed him
toward Marhaus, and they went so eagerly together, that the
knight of the turret was soon smitten down, horse and man,
stark dead—”

“Another horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that ought to

be broken up. I don’t see how people with any feeling can
applaud and support it.”

....

“So these two knights came together with great random—”

I saw that I had been asleep and missed a chapter, but I

didn’t say anything. I judged that the Irish knight was in
trouble with the visitors by this time, and this turned out to
be the case.
“—that Sir Uwaine smote Sir Marhaus that his spear brast in
pieces on the shield, and Sir Marhaus smote him so sore that
horse and man he bare to the earth, and hurt Sir Uwaine on
the left side—

“The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little too simple;
the vocabulary is too limited, and so, by consequence,
descriptions suffer in the matter of variety; they run too
much to level Saharas of fact, and not enough to picturesque
detail; this throws about them a certain air of the
monotonous; in fact the fights are all alike: a couple of
people come together with great random—random is a good
word, and so is exegesis, for that matter, and so is holocaust,
and defalcation, and usufruct and a hundred others, but
land! a body ought to discriminate—they come together with
great random, and a spear is brast, and one party brake his
shield and the other one goes down, horse and man, over his
horse-tail and brake his neck, and then the next candidate
comes randoming in, and brast his spear, and the other man
brast his shield, and down HE goes, horse and man, over his
horse-tail, and brake his neck, and then there’s another
elected, and another and another and still another, till the
material is all used up; and when you come to figure up
results, you can’t tell one fight from another, nor who
whipped; and as a picture, of living, raging, roaring battle,
sho! why, it’s pale and noiseless—just ghosts scuffling in a
fog. Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary get out of
the mightiest spectacle?—the burning of Rome in Nero’s
time, for instance? Why, it would merely say, ‘Town burned
down; no insurance; boy brast a window, fireman brake his
neck!’ Why, that ain’t a picture!”

It was a good deal of a lecture, I thought, but it didn’t disturb

Sandy, didn’t turn a feather; her steam soared steadily up
again, the minute I took off the lid:

“Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward

Gawaine with his spear. And when Sir Gawaine saw that, he
dressed his shield, and they aventred their spears, and they
came together with all the might of their horses, that either
knight smote other so hard in the midst of their shields, but
Sir Gawaine’s spear brake—”

“I knew it would.”

—”but Sir Marhaus’s spear held; and therewith Sir Gawaine

and his horse rushed down to the earth—”

“Just so—and brake his back.”

—”and lightly Sir Gawaine rose upon his feet and pulled out
his sword, and dressed him toward Sir Mar haus on foot, and
therewith either came unto other eagerly, and smote
together with their swords, that their shields flew in cantels,
and they bruised their helms and their hauberks, and
wounded either other. But Sir Gawaine, fro it passed nine of
the clock, waxed by the space of three hours ever stronger
and stronger. and thrice his might was increased. All this
espied Sir Marhaus, and had great wonder how his might in
creased, and so they wounded other passing sore; and then
when it was come noon—”

The pelting sing-song of it carried me forward to scenes and

sounds of my boyhood days:

“N-e-e-ew Haven! ten minutes for refreshments—knductr’ll

strike the gong-bell two minutes before train leaves—
passengers for the Shore line please take seats in the rear
k’yar, this k’yar don’t go no furder—AHH - pls, AW-rnjz,
b’NANners, S-A-N-D’ches, p—OP-corn!”

—”and waxed past noon and drew toward even song. Sir
Gawaine’s strength feebled and waxed passing faint, that
unnethes he might dure any longer, and Sir Marhaus was
then bigger and bigger—”

“Which strained his armor, of course; and yet little would one
of these people mind a small thing like that.”

—”and so, Sir Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have well felt that
ye are a passing good knight, and a marvelous man of might
as ever I felt any, while it lasteth, and our quarrels are not
great, and therefore it were a pity to do you hurt, for I feel
you are passing feeble. Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle knight,
ye say the word that I should say. And therewith they took
off their helms and either kissed other, and there they swore
together either to love other as brethren—”

But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber,

thinking about what a pity it was that men with such superb
strength—strength enabling them to stand up cased in
cruelly burdensome iron and drenched with perspiration, and
hack and batter and bang each other for six hours on a
stretch—should not have been born at a time when they
could put it to some useful purpose. Take a jackass, for
instance: a jackass has that kind of strength, and puts it to a
useful purpose, and is valuable to this world because he is a
jackass; but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a
jackass. It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should
never have been attempted in the first place. And yet, once
you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you never know
what is going to come of it.

When I came to myself again and began to listen, I perceived

that I had lost another chapter, and that Alisande had
wandered a long way off with her people.

“And so they rode and came into a deep valley full of stones,
and thereby they saw a fair stream of water; above thereby
was the head of the stream, a fair fountain, and three
damsels sitting thereby. In this country, said Sir Marhaus,
came never knight since it was christened, but he found
strange adventures—”

“This is not good form, Alisande. Sir Marhaus the king’s son
of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought to give him a
brogue, or at least a characteristic expletive; by this means
one would recognize him as soon as he spoke, without his
ever being named. It is a common literary device with the
great authors. You should make him say, ‘In this country, be
jabers, came never knight since it was christened, but he
found strange adventures, be jabers.’ You see how much
better that sounds.”

—”came never knight but he found strange adventures, be

jabers. Of a truth it doth indeed, fair lord, albeit ’tis passing
hard to say, though peradventure that will not tarry but
better speed with usage. And then they rode to the damsels,
and either saluted other, and the eldest had a garland of gold
about her head, and she was threescore winter of age or
more—”

“The damsel was?”

“Even so, dear lord—and her hair was white under the
garland—”

“Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not—the loose-

fit kind, that go up and down like a portcullis when you eat,
and fall out when you laugh.”

“The second damsel was of thirty winter of age, with a circlet

of gold about her head. The third damsel was but fifteen year
of age—”

Billows of thought came rolling over my soul, and the voice

faded out of my hearing!

Fifteen! Break—my heart! oh, my lost darling! Just her age

who was so gentle, and lovely, and all the world to me, and
whom I shall never see again! How the thought of her carries
me back over wide seas of memory to a vague dim time, a
happy time, so many, many centuries hence, when I used to
wake in the soft summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of
her, and say “Hello, Central!” just to hear her dear voice
come melting back to me with a “Hello, Hank!” that was
music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got three
dollars a week, but she was worth it.

I could not follow Alisande’s further explanation of who our

captured knights were, now—I mean in case she should ever
get to explaining who they were. My interest was gone, my
thoughts were far away, and sad. By fitful glimpses of the
drifting tale, caught here and there and now and then, I
merely noted in a vague way that each of these three
knights took one of these three damsels up behind him on
his horse, and one rode north, another east, the other south,
to seek adventures, and meet again and lie, after year and
day. Year and day—and without baggage. It was of a piece
with the general simplicity of the country.

The sun was now setting. It was about three in the afternoon
when Alisande had begun to tell me who the cowboys were;
so she had made pretty good progress with it—for her. She
would arrive some time or other, no doubt, but she was not a
person who could be hurried.

We were approaching a castle which stood on high ground; a

huge, strong, venerable structure, whose gray towers and
battlements were charmingly draped with ivy, and whose
whole majestic mass was drenched with splendors flung from
the sinking sun. It was the largest castle we had seen, and so
I thought it might be the one we were after, but Sandy said
no. She did not know who owned it; she said she had passed
it without calling, when she went down to Camelot.
Chapter XVI. Morgan Le Fay

F knights errant were to be believed,

not all castles were desirable places to seek hospitality in. As
a matter of fact, knights errant were NOT persons to be
believed—that is, measured by modern standards of veracity;
yet, measured by the standards of their own time, and scaled
accordingly, you got the truth. It was very simple: you
discounted a statement ninety-seven per cent.; the rest was
fact. Now after making this allowance, the truth remained
that if I could find out something about a castle before
ringing the doorbell—I mean hailing the warders—it was the
sensible thing to do. So I was pleased when I saw in the
distance a horseman making the bottom turn of the road that
wound down from this castle.
As we approached each other, I saw that he wore a plumed
helmet, and seemed to be otherwise clothed in steel, but
bore a curious addition also—a stiff square garment like a
herald’s tabard. However, I had to smile at my own
forgetfulness when I got nearer and read this sign on his
tabard:

“Persimmon’s Soap—All the Prime-Donna Use It.”

That was a little idea of my own, and had several wholesome

purposes in view toward the civilizing and uplifting of this
nation. In the first place, it was a furtive, underhand blow at
this nonsense of knight errantry, though nobody suspected
that but me. I had started a number of these people out—the
bravest knights I could get—each sandwiched between
bulletin-boards bearing one device or another, and I judged
that by and by when they got to be numerous enough they
would begin to look ridiculous; and then, even the steel-clad
ass that hadn’t any board would himself begin to look
ridiculous because he was out of the fashion.

Secondly, these missionaries would gradually, and without

creating suspicion or exciting alarm, introduce a rudimentary
cleanliness among the nobility, and from them it would work
down to the people, if the priests could be kept quiet. This
would undermine the Church. I mean would be a step toward
that. Next, education—next, freedom—and then she would
begin to crumble. It being my conviction that any Established
Church is an established crime, an established slave-pen, I
had no scruples, but was willing to assail it in any way or
with any weapon that promised to hurt it. Why, in my own
former day—in remote centuries not yet stirring in the womb
of time—there were old Englishmen who imagined that they
had been born in a free country: a “free” country with the
Corporation Act and the Test still in force in it—timbers
propped against men’s liberties and dishonored consciences
to shore up an Established Anachronism with.

My missionaries were taught to spell out the gilt signs on

their tabards—the showy gilding was a neat idea, I could
have got the king to wear a bulletin-board for the sake of
that barbaric splendor—they were to spell out these signs
and then explain to the lords and ladies what soap was; and
if the lords and ladies were afraid of it, get them to try it on
a dog. The missionary’s next move was to get the family
together and try it on himself; he was to stop at no
experiment, however desperate. that could convince the
nobility that soap was harmless; if any final doubt remained,
he must catch a hermit—the woods were full of them; saints
they called themselves, and saints they were believed to be.
They were unspeakably holy, and worked miracles, and
everybody stood in awe of them. If a hermit could survive a
wash, and that failed to convince a duke, give him up, let
him alone.

Whenever my missionaries overcame a knight errant on the

road they washed him, and when he got well they swore him
to go and get a bulletin-board and disseminate soap and
civilization the rest of his days. As a consequence the
workers in the field were increasing by degrees, and the
reform was steadily spreading. My soap factory felt the strain
early. At first I had only two hands; but before I had left
home I was already employing fifteen, and running night and
day; and the atmospheric result was getting so pronounced
that the king went sort of fainting and gasping around and
said he did not believe he could stand it much longer, and Sir
Launcelot got so that he did hardly anything but walk up and
down the roof and swear, although I told him it was worse up
there than anywhere else, but he said he wanted plenty of
air; and he was always complaining that a palace was no
place for a soap factory anyway, and said if a man was to
start one in his house he would be damned if he wouldn’t
strangle him. There were ladies present, too, but much these
people ever cared for that; they would swear before children,
if the wind was their way when the factory was going.

This missionary knight’s name was La Cote Male Taile, and he

said that this castle was the abode of Morgan le Fay, sister of
King Arthur, and wife of King Uriens. monarch of a realm
about as big as the District of Columbia—you could stand in
the middle of it and throw bricks into the next kingdom.
“Kings” and “Kingdoms” were as thick in Britain as they had
been in little Palestine in Joshua’s time, when people had to
sleep with their knees pulled up because they couldn’t
stretch out without a passport.

La Cote was much depressed, for he had scored here the

worst failure of his campaign. He had not worked off a cake;
yet he had tried all the tricks of the trade, even to the
washing of a hermit; but the hermit died. This was, indeed, a
bad failure, for this animal would now be dubbed a martyr,
and would take his place among the saints of the Roman
calendar. Thus made he his moan, this poor Sir La Cote Male
Taile, and sorrowed passing sore. And so my heart bled for
him, and I was moved to comfort and stay him. Wherefore I
said:

“Forbear to grieve, fair knight, for this is not a defeat. We

have brains, you and I; and for such as have brains there are
no defeats, but only victories. Observe how we will turn this
seeming disaster into an advertisement; an advertisement
for our soap; and the biggest one, to draw, that was ever
thought of; an advertisement that will transform that Mount
Washing ton defeat into a Matterhorn victory. We will put on
your bulletin-board, ‘Patronized by the elect.’ How does that
strike you?”

“Verily, it is wonderly bethought!”

“Well, a body is bound to admit that for just a modest little

one-line ad., it’s a corker.”

So the poor colporteur’s griefs vanished away. He was a

brave fellow, and had done mighty feats of arms in his time.
His chief celebrity rested upon the events of an excursion
like this one of mine, which he had once made with a damsel
named Maledisant, who was as handy with her tongue as was
Sandy, though in a different way, for her tongue churned
forth only railings and insult, whereas Sandy’s music was of a
kindlier sort. I knew his story well, and so I knew how to
interpret the compassion that was in his face when he bade
me farewell. He supposed I was having a bitter hard time of
it.

Sandy and I discussed his story, as we rode along, and she

said that La Cote’s bad luck had begun with the very
beginning of that trip; for the king’s fool had overthrown him
on the first day, and in such cases it was customary for the
girl to desert to the conqueror, but Maledisant didn’t do it;
and also persisted afterward in sticking to him, after all his
defeats. But, said I, suppose the victor should decline to
accept his spoil? She said that that wouldn’t answer—he
must. He couldn’t decline; it wouldn’t be regular. I made a
note of that. If Sandy’s music got to be too burdensome,
some time, I would let a knight defeat me, on the chance
that she would desert to him.

In due time we were challenged by the warders, from the

castle walls, and after a parley admitted. I have nothing
pleasant to tell about that visit. But it was not a
disappointment, for I knew Mrs. le Fay by reputation, and
was not expecting anything pleasant. She was held in awe by
the whole realm, for she had made everybody believe she
was a great sorceress. All her ways were wicked, all her
instincts devilish. She was loaded to the eyelids with cold
malice. All her history was black with crime; and among her
crimes murder was common. I was most curious to see her;
as curious as I could have been to see Satan. To my surprise
she was beautiful; black thoughts had failed to make her
expression repulsive, age had failed to wrinkle her satin skin
or mar its bloomy freshness. She could have passed for old
Uriens’ granddaughter, she could have been mistaken for
sister to her own son.

As soon as we were fairly within the castle gates we were

ordered into her presence. King Uriens was there, a kind-
faced old man with a subdued look; and also the son, Sir
Uwaine le Blanchemains, in whom I was, of course,
interested on account of the tradition that he had once done
battle with thirty knights, and also on account of his trip with
Sir Gawaine and Sir Marhaus, which Sandy had been aging
me with. But Morgan was the main attraction, the
conspicuous personality here; she was head chief of this
household, that was plain. She caused us to be seated, and
then she began, with all manner of pretty graces and
graciousnesses, to ask me questions. Dear me, it was like a
bird or a flute, or something, talking. I felt persuaded that
this woman must have been misrepresented, lied about. She
trilled along, and trilled along, and presently a handsome
young page, clothed like the rainbow, and as easy and
undulatory of movement as a wave, came with something on
a golden salver, and, kneeling to present it to her, overdid his
graces and lost his balance, and so fell lightly against her
knee. She slipped a dirk into him in as matter-of-course a
way as another person would have harpooned a rat!

Poor child! he slumped to the floor, twisted his silken limbs in

one great straining contortion of pain, and was dead. Out of
the old king was wrung an involuntary “O-h!” of compassion.
The look he got, made him cut it suddenly short and not put
any more hyphens in it. Sir Uwaine, at a sign from his
mother, went to the anteroom and called some servants, and
meanwhile madame went rippling sweetly along with her
talk.

I saw that she was a good housekeeper, for while she talked
she kept a corner of her eye on the servants to see that they
made no balks in handling the body and getting it out; when
they came with fresh clean towels, she sent back for the
other kind; and when they had finished wiping the floor and
were going, she indicated a crimson fleck the size of a tear
which their duller eyes had overlooked. It was plain to me
that La Cote Male Taile had failed to see the mistress of the
house. Often, how louder and clearer than any tongue, does
dumb circumstantial evidence speak.

Morgan le Fay rippled along as musically as ever. Marvelous

woman. And what a glance she had: when it fell in reproof
upon those servants, they shrunk and quailed as timid
people do when the lightning flashes out of a cloud. I could
have got the habit myself. It was the same with that poor old
Brer Uriens; he was always on the ragged edge of
apprehension; she could not even turn toward him but he
winced.

In the midst of the talk I let drop a complimentary word

about King Arthur, forgetting for the moment how this
woman hated her brother. That one little compliment was
enough. She clouded up like storm; she called for her
guards, and said:

“Hale me these varlets to the dungeons.”

That struck cold on my ears, for her dungeons had a

reputation. Nothing occurred to me to say—or do. But not so
with Sandy. As the guard laid a hand upon me, she piped up
with the tranquilest confidence, and said:

“God’s wounds, dost thou covet destruction, thou maniac? It

is The Boss!”

Now what a happy idea that was!—and so simple; yet it

would never have occurred to me. I was born modest; not all
over, but in spots; and this was one of the spots.

The effect upon madame was electrical. It cleared her

countenance and brought back her smiles and all her
persuasive graces and blandishments; but nevertheless she
was not able to entirely cover up with them the fact that she
was in a ghastly fright. She said:

“La, but do list to thine handmaid! as if one gifted with

powers like to mine might say the thing which I have said
unto one who has vanquished Merlin, and not be jesting. By
mine enchantments I foresaw your coming, and by them I
knew you when you entered here. I did but play this little
jest with hope to surprise you into some display of your art,
as not doubting you would blast the guards with occult fires,
consuming them to ashes on the spot, a marvel much beyond
mine own ability, yet one which I have long been childishly
curious to see.”

The guards were less curious, and got out as soon as they
got permission.
Chapter XVII. A Royal Banquet
MADAME, seeing me pacific and unresentful, no doubt
judged that I was deceived by her excuse; for her fright
dissolved away, and she was soon so importunate to have me
give an exhibition and kill somebody, that the thing grew to
be embarrassing. However, to my relief she was presently
interrupted by the call to prayers. I will say this much for the
nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and morally
rotten as they were, they were deeply and enthusiastically
religious. Nothing could divert them from the regular and
faithful performance of the pieties enjoined by the Church.
More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his
enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before cutting his
throat; more than once I had seen a noble, after ambushing
and despatching his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside
shrine and humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob
the body. There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the life
of even Benvenuto Cellini, that rough-hewn saint, ten
centuries later. All the nobles of Britain, with their families,
attended divine service morning and night daily, in their
private chapels, and even the worst of them had family
worship five or six times a day besides. The credit of this
belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend to
that Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often,
in spite of me, I found myself saying, “What would this
country be without the Church?”

After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting hall which

was lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and everything was
as fine and lavish and rudely splendid as might become the
royal degree of the hosts. At the head of the hall, on a dais,
was the table of the king, queen, and their son, Prince
Uwaine. Stretching down the hall from this, was the general
table, on the floor. At this, above the salt, sat the visiting
nobles and the grown members of their families, of both
sexes,—the resident Court, in effect—sixty-one persons;
below the salt sat minor officers of the house hold, with their
principal subordinates: altogether a hundred and eighteen
persons sitting, and about as many liveried servants standing
behind their chairs, or serving in one capacity or another. It
was a very fine show. In a gallery a band with cymbals,
horns, harps, and other horrors, opened the proceedings with
what seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of
the wail known to later centuries as “In the Sweet Bye and
Bye.” It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little
more. For some reason or other the queen had the composer
hanged, after dinner.

After this music, the priest who stood behind the royal table
said a noble long grace in ostensible Latin. Then the battalion
of waiters broke away from their posts, and darted, rushed,
flew, fetched and carried, and the mighty feeding began; no
words anywhere, but absorbing attention to business. The
rows of chops opened and shut in vast unison, and the sound
of it was like to the muffled burr of subterranean machinery.

The havoc continued an hour and a half, and unimaginable

was the destruction of substantials. Of the chief feature of
the feast—the huge wild boar that lay stretched out so portly
and imposing at the start—nothing was left but the
semblance of a hoop-skirt; and he was but the type and
symbol of what had happened to all the other dishes.

With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking began—and

the talk. Gallon after gallon of wine and mead disappeared,
and everybody got comfortable, then happy, then sparklingly
joyous—both sexes,—and by and by pretty noisy. Men told
anecdotes that were terrific to hear, but nobody blushed; and
when the nub was sprung, the assemblage let go with a
horse-laugh that shook the fortress. Ladies answered back
with historiettes that would almost have made Queen
Margaret of Navarre or even the great Elizabeth of England
hide behind a handkerchief, but nobody hid here, but only
laughed—howled, you may say. In pretty much all of these
dreadful stories, ecclesiastics were the hardy heroes, but that
didn’t worry the chaplain any, he had his laugh with the rest;
more than that, upon invitation he roared out a song which
was of as daring a sort as any that was sung that night.

By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore with

laughing; and, as a rule, drunk: some weepingly, some
affectionately, some hilariously, some quarrelsomely, some
dead and under the table. Of the ladies, the worst spectacle
was a lovely young duchess, whose wedding-eve this was;
and indeed she was a spectacle, sure enough. Just as she
was she could have sat in advance for the portrait of the
young daughter of the Regent d’Orleans, at the famous
dinner whence she was carried, foul-mouthed, intoxicated,
and helpless, to her bed, in the lost and lamented days of the
Ancient Regime.

Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his hands, and all
conscious heads were bowed in reverent expectation of the
coming blessing, there appeared under the arch of the far-off
door at the bottom of the hall an old and bent and white-
haired lady, leaning upon a crutch-stick; and she lifted the
stick and pointed it toward the queen and cried out:

“The wrath and curse of God fall upon you, woman without
pity, who have slain mine innocent grandchild and made
desolate this old heart that had nor chick, nor friend nor stay
nor comfort in all this world but him!”
Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for a curse was
an awful thing to those people; but the queen rose up
majestic, with the death-light in her eye, and flung back this
ruthless command:

“Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!”

The guards left their posts to obey. It was a shame; it was a

cruel thing to see. What could be done? Sandy gave me a
look; I knew she had another inspiration. I said:

“Do what you choose.”

She was up and facing toward the queen in a moment. She

indicated me, and said:

“Madame, he saith this may not be. Recall the

commandment, or he will dissolve the castle and it shall
vanish away like the instable fabric of a dream!”

Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a person to!

What if the queen—

But my consternation subsided there, and my panic passed

off; for the queen, all in a collapse, made no show of
resistance but gave a countermanding sign and sunk into her
seat. When she reached it she was sober. So were many of
the others. The assemblage rose, whiffed ceremony to the
winds, and rushed for the door like a mob; overturning
chairs, smashing crockery, tugging, struggling, shouldering,
crowding—anything to get out before I should change my
mind and puff the castle into the measureless dim vacancies
of space. Well, well, well, they were a superstitious lot. It is
all a body can do to conceive of it.

The poor queen was so scared and humbled that she was
even afraid to hang the composer without first consulting
me. I was very sorry for her—indeed, any one would have
been, for she was really suffering; so I was willing to do
anything that was reasonable, and had no desire to carry
things to wanton extremities. I therefore considered the
matter thoughtfully, and ended by having the musicians
ordered into our presence to play that Sweet Bye and Bye
again, which they did. Then I saw that she was right, and
gave her permission to hang the whole band. This little
relaxation of sternness had a good effect upon the queen. A
states man gains little by the arbitrary exercise of iron-clad
authority upon all occasions that offer, for this wounds the
just pride of his subordinates, and thus tends to undermine
his strength. A little concession, now and then, where it can
do no harm, is the wiser policy.

Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once more, and
measurably happy, her wine naturally began to assert itself
again, and it got a little the start of her. I mean it set her
music going—her silver bell of a tongue. Dear me, she was a
master talker. It would not become me to suggest that it was
pretty late and that I was a tired man and very sleepy. I
wished I had gone off to bed when I had the chance. Now I
must stick it out; there was no other way. So she tinkled
along and along, in the otherwise profound and ghostly hush
of the sleeping castle, until by and by there came, as if from
deep down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled
shriek—with an expression of agony about it that made my
flesh crawl. The queen stopped, and her eyes lighted with
pleasure; she tilted her graceful head as a bird does when it
listens. The sound bored its way up through the stillness
again.

“What is it?” I said.

“It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It is many
hours now.”

“Endureth what?”

“The rack. Come—ye shall see a blithe sight. An he yield not

his secret now, ye shall see him torn asunder.”

What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so com posed and
serene, when the cords all down my legs were hurting in
sympathy with that man’s pain. Conducted by mailed guards
bearing flaring torches, we tramped along echoing corridors,
and down stone stairways dank and dripping, and smelling of
mould and ages of imprisoned night—a chill, uncanny
journey and a long one, and not made the shorter or the
cheerier by the sorceress’s talk, which was about this
sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an
anonymous informer, of having killed a stag in the royal
preserves. I said:

“Anonymous testimony isn’t just the right thing, your

Highness. It were fairer to confront the accused with the
accuser.”

“I had not thought of that, it being but of small consequence.

But an I would, I could not, for that the accuser came
masked by night, and told the forester, and straightway got
him hence again, and so the forester knoweth him not.”

“Then is this Unknown the only person who saw the stag
killed?”

“Marry, no man saw the killing, but this Unknown saw this
hardy wretch near to the spot where the stag lay, and came
with right loyal zeal and betrayed him to the forester.”
“So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too? Isn’t it just
possible that he did the killing himself? His loyal zeal—in a
mask—looks just a shade suspicious. But what is your
highness’s idea for racking the prisoner? Where is the
profit?”

“He will not confess, else; and then were his soul lost. For his
crime his life is forfeited by the law—and of a surety will I
see that he payeth it!—but it were peril to my own soul to let
him die unconfessed and unabsolved. Nay, I were a fool to
fling me into hell for HIS accommodation.”

“But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to confess?”

“As to that, we shall see, anon. An I rack him to death and

he confess not, it will peradventure show that he had indeed
naught to confess—ye will grant that that is sooth? Then
shall I not be damned for an unconfessed man that had
naught to confess—wherefore, I shall be safe.”

It was the stubborn unreasoning of the time. It was useless

to argue with her. Arguments have no chance against
petrified training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a
cliff. And her training was everybody’s. The brightest intellect
in the land would not have been able to see that her position
was defective.

As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that will not go

from me; I wish it would. A native young giant of thirty or
thereabouts lay stretched upon the frame on his back, with
his wrists and ankles tied to ropes which led over windlasses
at either end. There was no color in him; his features were
contorted and set, and sweat-drops stood upon his forehead.
A priest bent over him on each side; the executioner stood
by; guards were on duty; smoking torches stood in sockets
along the walls; in a corner crouched a poor young creature,
her face drawn with anguish, a half-wild and hunted look in
her eyes, and in her lap lay a little child asleep. Just as we
stepped across the threshold the executioner gave his
machine a slight turn, which wrung a cry from both the
prisoner and the woman; but I shouted, and the executioner
released the strain without waiting to see who spoke. I could
not let this horror go on; it would have killed me to see it. I
asked the queen to let me clear the place and speak to the
prisoner privately; and when she was going to object I spoke
in a low voice and said I did not want to make a scene before
her servants, but I must have my way; for I was King
Arthur’s representative, and was speaking in his name. She
saw she had to yield. I asked her to indorse me to these
people, and then leave me. It was not pleasant for her, but
she took the pill; and even went further than I was meaning
to require. I only wanted the backing of her own authority;
but she said:

“Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command. It is The

Boss.”

It was certainly a good word to conjure with: you could see it

by the squirming of these rats. The queen’s guards fell into
line, and she and they marched away, with their torch-
bearers, and woke the echoes of the cavernous tunnels with
the measured beat of their retreating footfalls. I had the
prisoner taken from the rack and placed upon his bed, and
medicaments applied to his hurts, and wine given him to
drink. The woman crept near and looked on, eagerly,
lovingly, but timorously,—like one who fears a repulse;
indeed, she tried furtively to touch the man’s forehead, and
jumped back, the picture of fright, when I turned
unconsciously toward her. It was pitiful to see.
“Lord,” I said, “stroke him, lass, if you want to. Do anything
you’re a mind to; don’t mind me.”

Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal’s, when you do

it a kindness that it understands. The baby was out of her
way and she had her cheek against the man’s in a minute.
and her hands fondling his hair, and her happy tears running
down. The man revived and caressed his wife with his eyes,
which was all he could do. I judged I might clear the den,
now, and I did; cleared it of all but the family and myself.
Then I said:

“Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter; I know the

other side.”

The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But the woman
looked pleased—as it seemed to me—pleased with my
suggestion. I went on—

“You know of me?”

“Yes. All do, in Arthur’s realms.”

“If my reputation has come to you right and straight, you

should not be afraid to speak.”

The woman broke in, eagerly:

“Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou canst an thou

wilt. Ah, he suffereth so; and it is for me—for ME! And how
can I bear it? I would I might see him die—a sweet, swift
death; oh, my Hugo, I cannot bear this one!”

And she fell to sobbing and grovelling about my feet, and still
imploring. Imploring what? The man’s death? I could not
quite get the bearings of the thing. But Hugo interrupted her
and said:

“Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve whom I love, to

win a gentle death? I wend thou knewest me better.”

“Well,” I said, “I can’t quite make this out. It is a puzzle. Now

—”

“Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how

these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak!—
whereas, the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift
death—”

“What are you maundering about? He’s going out from here
a free man and whole—he’s not going to die.”

The man’s white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at
me in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out:

“He is saved!—for it is the king’s word by the mouth of the

king’s servant—Arthur, the king whose word is gold!”

“Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why

didn’t you before?”

“Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you tell me your story, then?”

“Ye had made no promise; else had it been otherwise.”

“I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don’t quite see, after all.
You stood the torture and refused to confess; which shows
plain enough to even the dullest understanding that you had
nothing to confess—”
“I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!”

“You did? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that
ever—”

“Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but—”

“You did! It gets thicker and thicker. What did you want him
to do that for?”

“Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this
cruel pain.”

“Well—yes, there is reason in that. But he didn’t want the

quick death.”

“He? Why, of a surety he did.”

“Well, then, why in the world didn’t he confess?”

“Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick with out bread
and shelter?”

“Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law takes the
convicted man’s estate and beggars his widow and his
orphans. They could torture you to death, but without
conviction or confession they could not rob your wife and
baby. You stood by them like a man; and YOU—true wife and
the woman that you are—you would have bought him
release from torture at cost to yourself of slow starvation and
death—well, it humbles a body to think what your sex can do
when it comes to self-sacrifice. I’ll book you both for my
colony; you’ll like it there; it’s a Factory where I’m going to
turn groping and grubbing automata into men.”
Chapter XVIII. In the Queen’s
Dungeons
WELL, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent to his
home. I had a great desire to rack the executioner; not
because he was a good, painstaking and paingiving official,—
for surely it was not to his discredit that he performed his
functions well—but to pay him back for wantonly cuffing and
otherwise distressing that young woman. The priests told me
about this, and were generously hot to have him punished.
Something of this disagreeable sort was turning up every
now and then. I mean, episodes that showed that not all
priests were frauds and self-seekers, but that many, even the
great majority, of these that were down on the ground
among the common people, were sincere and right-hearted,
and devoted to the alleviation of human troubles and
sufferings. Well, it was a thing which could not be helped, so
I seldom fretted about it, and never many minutes at a time;
it has never been my way to bother much about things which
you can’t cure. But I did not like it, for it was just the sort of
thing to keep people reconciled to an Established Church. We
must have a religion—it goes without saying—but my idea is,
to have it cut up into forty free sects, so that they will police
each other, as had been the case in the United States in my
time. Concentration of power in a political machine is bad;
and and an Established Church is only a political machine; it
was invented for that; it is nursed, cradled, preserved for
that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and does no good
which it could not better do in a split-up and scattered
condition. That wasn’t law; it wasn’t gospel: it was only an
opinion—my opinion, and I was only a man, one man: so it
wasn’t worth any more than the pope’s—or any less, for that
matter.
Well, I couldn’t rack the executioner, neither would I
overlook the just complaint of the priests. The man must be
punished somehow or other, so I degraded him from his office
and made him leader of the band—the new one that was to
be started. He begged hard, and said he couldn’t play—a
plausible excuse, but too thin; there wasn’t a musician in the
country that could.

The queen was a good deal outraged, next morning when she
found she was going to have neither Hugo’s life nor his
property. But I told her she must bear this cross; that while
by law and custom she certainly was entitled to both the
man’s life and his property, there were extenuating
circumstances, and so in Arthur the king’s name I had
pardoned him. The deer was ravaging the man’s fields, and
he had killed it in sudden passion, and not for gain; and he
had carried it into the royal forest in the hope that that
might make detection of the misdoer impossible. Confound
her, I couldn’t make her see that sudden passion is an
extenuating circumstance in the killing of venison—or of a
person—so I gave it up and let her sulk it out I did think I
was going to make her see it by remarking that her own
sudden passion in the case of the page modified that crime.

“Crime!” she exclaimed. “How thou talkest! Crime, forsooth!

Man, I am going to pay for him!”

Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training—training is

everything; training is all there is TO a person. We speak of
nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we
call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training.
We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own;
they are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original
in us, and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us,
can be covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric
needle, all the rest being atoms contributed by, and inherited
from, a procession of ancestors that stretches back a billion
years to the Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from
whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and
unprofitably developed. And as for me, all that I think about
in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this pathetic drift between
the eternities, is to look out and humbly live a pure and high
and blameless life, and save that one microscopic atom in me
that is truly me: the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for
all I care.

No, confound her, her intellect was good, she had brains
enough, but her training made her an ass—that is, from a
many-centuries-later point of view. To kill the page was no
crime—it was her right; and upon her right she stood,
serenely and unconscious of offense. She was a result of
generations of training in the unexamined and unassailed
belief that the law which permitted her to kill a subject when
she chose was a perfectly right and righteous one.

Well, we must give even Satan his due. She de served a

compliment for one thing; and I tried to pay it, but the words
stuck in my throat. She had a right to kill the boy, but she
was in no wise obliged to pay for him. That was law for some
other people, but not for her. She knew quite well that she
was doing a large and generous thing to pay for that lad, and
that I ought in common fairness to come out with some thing
handsome about it, but I couldn’t—my mouth refused. I
couldn’t help seeing, in my fancy, that poor old grandma with
the broken heart, and that fair young creature lying
butchered, his little silken pomps and vanities laced with his
golden blood. How could she pay for him! Whom could she
pay? And so, well knowing that this woman, trained as she
had been, deserved praise, even adulation, I was yet not
able to utter it, trained as I had been. The best I could do
was to fish up a compliment from outside, so to speak—and
the pity of it was, that it was true:

“Madame, your people will adore you for this.”

Quite true, but I meant to hang her for it some day if I lived.
Some of those laws were too bad, altogether too bad. A
master might kill his slave for nothing—for mere spite,
malice, or to pass the time—just as we have seen that the
crowned head could do it with his slave, that is to say,
anybody. A gentleman could kill a free commoner, and pay
for him—cash or garden-truck. A noble could kill a noble
without expense, as far as the law was concerned, but
reprisals in kind were to be expected. anybody could kill
some body, except the commoner and the slave; these had
no privileges. If they killed, it was murder, and the law
wouldn’t stand murder. It made short work of the
experimenter—and of his family, too, if he murdered
somebody who belonged up among the ornamental ranks. If
a commoner gave a noble even so much as a Damiens-
scratch which didn’t kill or even hurt, he got Damiens’ dose
for it just the same; they pulled him to rags and tatters with
horses, and all the world came to see the show, and crack
jokes, and have a good time; and some of the performances
of the best people present were as tough, and as properly
unprintable, as any that have been printed by the pleasant
Casanova in his chapter about the dismemberment of Louis
XV’s poor awkward enemy.

I had had enough of this grisly place by this time, and

wanted to leave, but I couldn’t, because I had something on
my mind that my conscience kept prodding me about, and
wouldn’t let me forget. If I had the remaking of man, he
wouldn’t have any conscience. It is one of the most
disagreeable things connected with a person; and although it
certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot be said to pay,
in the long run; it would be much better to have less good
and more comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and I am
only one man; others, with less experience, may think
differently. They have a right to their view. I only stand to
this: I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I
know it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else
I started with. I suppose that in the beginning I prized it,
because we prize anything that is ours; and yet how foolish
it was to think so. If we look at it in another way, we see how
absurd it is: if I had an anvil in me would I prize it? Of
course not. And yet when you come to think, there is no real
difference between a conscience and an anvil—I mean for
comfort. I have noticed it a thousand times. And you could
dissolve an anvil with acids, when you couldn’t stand it any
longer; but there isn’t any way that you can work off a
conscience—at least so it will stay worked off; not that I
know of, anyway.

There was something I wanted to do before leaving, but it

was a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at it. Well, it
bothered me all the morning. I could have mentioned it to
the old king, but what would be the use?—he was but an
extinct volcano; he had been active in his time, but his fire
was out, this good while, he was only a stately ash-pile now;
gentle enough, and kindly enough for my purpose, without
doubt, but not usable. He was nothing, this so-called king:
the queen was the only power there. And she was a
Vesuvius. As a favor, she might consent to warm a flock of
sparrows for you, but then she might take that very
opportunity to turn herself loose and bury a city. However, I
reflected that as often as any other way, when you are
expecting the worst, you get something that is not so bad,
after all.

So I braced up and placed my matter before her royal

Highness. I said I had been having a general jail-delivery at
Camelot and among neighboring castles, and with her
permission I would like to examine her collection, her bric-a-
brac—that is to say, her prisoners. She resisted; but I was
expecting that. But she finally consented. I was expecting
that, too, but not so soon. That about ended my discomfort.
She called her guards and torches, and we went down into
the dungeons. These were down under the castle’s
foundations, and mainly were small cells hollowed out of the
living rock. Some of these cells had no light at all. In one of
them was a woman, in foul rags, who sat on the ground, and
would not answer a question or speak a word, but only
looked up at us once or twice, through a cobweb of tangled
hair, as if to see what casual thing it might be that was
disturbing with sound and light the meaningless dull dream
that was become her life; after that, she sat bowed, with her
dirt-caked fingers idly interlocked in her lap, and gave no
further sign. This poor rack of bones was a woman of middle
age, apparently; but only apparently; she had been there
nine years, and was eighteen when she entered. She was a
commoner, and had been sent here on her bridal night by Sir
Breuse Sance Pite, a neighboring lord whose vassal her
father was, and to which said lord she had refused what has
since been called le droit du seigneur, and, moreover, had
opposed violence to violence and spilt half a gill of his almost
sacred blood. The young husband had interfered at that
point. Believing the bride’s life in danger, and had flung the
noble out into the midst of the humble and trembling
wedding guests, in the parlor, and left him there astonished
at this strange treatment, and implacably embittered against
both bride and groom. The said lord being cramped for
dungeon-room had asked the queen to accommodate his two
criminals, and here in her bastile they had been ever since;
hither, indeed, they had come before their crime was an hour
old, and had never seen each other since. Here they were,
kenneled like toads in the same rock; they had passed nine
pitch dark years within fifty feet of each other, yet neither
knew whether the other was alive or not. All the first years,
their only question had been—asked with beseechings and
tears that might have moved stones, in time, perhaps, but
hearts are not stones: “Is he alive?” “Is she alive?” But they
had never got an answer; and at last that question was not
asked any more—or any other.

I wanted to see the man, after hearing all this. He was

thirty-four years old, and looked sixty. He sat upon a squared
block of stone, with his head bent down, his forearms resting
on his knees, his long hair hanging like a fringe before his
face, and he was muttering to himself. He raised his chin and
looked us slowly over, in a listless dull way, blinking with the
distress of the torchlight, then dropped his head and fell to
muttering again and took no further notice of us. There were
some pathetically suggestive dumb witnesses present. On his
wrists and ankles were cicatrices, old smooth scars, and
fastened to the stone on which he sat was a chain with
manacles and fetters attached; but this apparatus lay idle on
the ground, and was thick with rust. Chains cease to be
needed after the spirit has gone out of a prisoner.

I could not rouse the man; so I said we would take him to

her, and see—to the bride who was the fairest thing in the
earth to him, once—roses, pearls, and dew made flesh, for
him; a wonder-work, the master-work of nature: with eyes
like no other eyes, and voice like no other voice, and a
freshness, and lithe young grace, and beauty, that belonged
properly to the creatures of dreams—as he thought—and to
no other. The sight of her would set his stagnant blood
leaping; the sight of her—

But it was a disappointment. They sat together on the

ground and looked dimly wondering into each other’s faces a
while, with a sort of weak animal curiosity; then forgot each
other’s presence, and dropped their eyes, and you saw that
they were away again and wandering in some far land of
dreams and shadows that we know nothing about.

I had them taken out and sent to their friends. The queen did
not like it much. Not that she felt any personal interest in
the matter, but she thought it disrespectful to Sir Breuse
Sance Pite. However, I assured her that if he found he
couldn’t stand it I would fix him so that he could.

I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful rat-holes,

and left only one in captivity. He was a lord, and had killed
another lord, a sort of kinsman of the queen. That other lord
had ambushed him to assassinate him, but this fellow had
got the best of him and cut his throat. However, it was not
for that that I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying
the only public well in one of his wretched villages. The
queen was bound to hang him for killing her kinsman, but I
would not allow it: it was no crime to kill an assassin. But I
said I was willing to let her hang him for destroying the well;
so she concluded to put up with that, as it was better than
nothing.

Dear me, for what trifling offenses the most of those forty-
seven men and women were shut up there! In deed, some
were there for no distinct offense at all, but only to gratify
somebody’s spite; and not always the queen’s by any means,
but a friend’s. The newest prisoner’s crime was a mere
remark which he had made. He said he believed that men
were about all alike, and one man as good as another,
barring clothes. He said he believed that if you were to strip
the nation naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he
couldn’t tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke from a
hotel clerk. Apparently here was a man whose brains had not
been reduced to an ineffectual mush by idiotic training. I set
him loose and sent him to the Factory.

Some of the cells carved in the living rock were just behind
the face of the precipice, and in each of these an arrow-slit
had been pierced outward to the daylight, and so the captive
had a thin ray from the blessed sun for his comfort. The case
of one of these poor fellows was particularly hard. From his
dusky swallow’s hole high up in that vast wall of native rock
he could peer out through the arrow-slit and see his own
home off yonder in the valley; and for twenty-two years he
had watched it, with heartache and longing, through that
crack. He could see the lights shine there at night, and in the
daytime he could see figures go in and come out—his wife
and children, some of them, no doubt, though he could not
make out at that distance. In the course of years he noted
festivities there, and tried to rejoice, and wondered if they
were weddings or what they might be. And he noted
funerals; and they wrung his heart. He could make out the
coffin, but he could not determine its size, and so could not
tell whether it was wife or child. He could see the procession
form, with priests and mourners, and move solemnly away,
bearing the secret with them. He had left behind him five
children and a wife; and in nineteen years he had seen five
funerals issue, and none of them humble enough in pomp to
denote a servant. So he had lost five of his treasures; there
must still be one remaining—one now infinitely, unspeakably
precious,—but which one? wife, or child? That was the
question that tortured him, by night and by day, asleep and
awake. Well, to have an interest, of some sort, and half a ray
of light, when you are in a dungeon, is a great support to the
body and preserver of the intellect. This man was in pretty
good condition yet. By the time he had finished telling me his
distressful tale, I was in the same state of mind that you
would have been in yourself, if you have got average human
curiosity; that is to say, I was as burning up as he was to find
out which member of the family it was that was left. So I
took him over home myself; and an amazing kind of a
surprise party it was, too—typhoons and cyclones of frantic
joy, and whole Niagaras of happy tears; and by George! we
found the aforetime young matron graying toward the
imminent verge of her half century, and the babies all men
and women, and some of them married and experimenting
familywise themselves—for not a soul of the tribe was dead!
Conceive of the ingenious devilishness of that queen: she
had a special hatred for this prisoner, and she had invented
all those funerals herself, to scorch his heart with; and the
sublimest stroke of genius of the whole thing was leaving the
family-invoice a funeral SHORT, so as to let him wear his
poor old soul out guessing.

But for me, he never would have got out. Morgan le Fay
hated him with her whole heart, and she never would have
softened toward him. And yet his crime was committed more
in thoughtlessness than deliberate depravity. He had said she
had red hair. Well, she had; but that was no way to speak of
it. When red headed people are above a certain social grade
their hair is auburn.

Consider it: among these forty-seven captives there were

five whose names, offenses, and dates of incarceration were
no longer known! One woman and four men—all bent, and
wrinkled, and mind-extinguished patriarchs. They themselves
had long ago forgotten these details; at any rate they had
mere vague theories about them, nothing definite and
nothing that they repeated twice in the same way. The
succession of priests whose office it had been to pray daily
with the captives and remind them that God had put them
there, for some wise purpose or other, and teach them that
patience, humbleness, and submission to oppression was
what He loved to see in parties of a subordinate rank, had
traditions about these poor old human ruins, but nothing
more. These traditions went but little way, for they
concerned the length of the incarceration only, and not the
names of the offenses. And even by the help of tradition the
only thing that could be proven was that none of the five had
seen daylight for thirty-five years: how much longer this
privation has lasted was not guessable. The king and the
queen knew nothing about these poor creatures, except that
they were heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the throne,
from the former firm. Nothing of their history had been
transmitted with their persons, and so the inheriting owners
had considered them of no value, and had felt no interest in
them. I said to the queen:

“Then why in the world didn’t you set them free?”

The question was a puzzler. She didn’t know WHY she hadn’t,
the thing had never come up in her mind. So here she was,
forecasting the veritable history of future prisoners of the
Castle d’If, without knowing it. It seemed plain to me now,
that with her training, those inherited prisoners were merely
property—nothing more, nothing less. Well, when we inherit
property, it does not occur to us to throw it away, even when
we do not value it.

When I brought my procession of human bats up into the

open world and the glare of the afternoon sun—previously
blindfolding them, in charity for eyes so long untortured by
light—they were a spectacle to look at. Skeletons,
scarecrows, goblins, pathetic frights, every one; legitimatest
possible children of Monarchy by the Grace of God and the
Established Church. I muttered absently:

“I wish I could photograph them!”

You have seen that kind of people who will never let on that
they don’t know the meaning of a new big word. The more
ignorant they are, the more pitifully certain they are to
pretend you haven’t shot over their heads. The queen was
just one of that sort, and was always making the stupidest
blunders by reason of it. She hesitated a moment; then her
face brightened up with sudden comprehension, and she said
she would do it for me.

I thought to myself: She? why what can she know about

photography? But it was a poor time to be thinking. When I
looked around, she was moving on the procession with an
axe!

Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan le Fay. I

have seen a good many kinds of women in my time, but she
laid over them all for variety. And how sharply characteristic
of her this episode was. She had no more idea than a horse
of how to photograph a procession; but being in doubt, it was
just like her to try to do it with an axe.
Chapter XIX. Knight-Errantry as a
Trade
SANDY and I were on the road again, next morning, bright
and early. It was so good to open up one’s lungs and take in
whole luscious barrelsful of the blessed God’s untainted, dew-
fashioned, woodland- scented air once more, after
suffocating body and mind for two days and nights in the
moral and physical stenches of that intolerable old buzzard-
roost! mean, for me: of course the place was all right and
agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to high
life all her days.

Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now for a while,
and I was expecting to get the consequences. I was right; but
she had stood by me most helpfully in the castle, and had
mightily supported and reinforced me with gigantic
foolishnesses which were worth more for the occasion than
wisdoms double their size; so I thought she had earned a
right to work her mill for a while, if she wanted to, and I felt
not a pang when she started it up:

“Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of
thirty winter of age southward—”

“Are you going to see if you can work up another half-stretch

on the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?”

“Even so, fair my lord.”

“Go ahead, then. I won’t interrupt this time, if I can help it.
Begin over again; start fair, and shake out all your reefs, and
I will load my pipe and give good attention.”
“Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of
thirty winter of age southward. And so they came into a deep
forest, and by fortune they were nighted, and rode along in a
deep way, and at the last they came into a courtelage where
abode the duke of South Marches, and there they asked
harbour. And on the morn the duke sent unto Sir Marhaus,
and bad him make him ready. And so Sir Marhaus arose and
armed him, and there was a mass sung afore him, and he
brake his fast, and so mounted on horseback in the court of
the castle, there they should do the battle. So there was the
duke already on horseback, clean armed, and his six sons by
him, and every each had a spear in his hand, and so they
encountered, whereas the duke and his two sons brake their
spears upon him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and
touched none of them. Then came the four sons by couples,
and two of them brake their spears, and so did the other two.
And all this while Sir Marhaus touched them not. Then Sir
Marhaus ran to the duke, and smote him with his spear that
horse and man fell to the earth. And so he served his sons.
And then Sir Marhaus alight down, and bad the duke yield
him or else he would slay him. And then some of his sons
recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus. Then Sir
Marhaus said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or else I will do
the uttermost to you all. When the duke saw he might not
escape the death, he cried to his sons, and charged them to
yield them to Sir Marhaus. And they kneeled all down and
put the pommels of their swords to the knight, and so he
received them. And then they holp up their father, and so by
their common assent promised unto Sir Marhaus never to be
foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon at Whitsuntide after, to
come he and his sons, and put them in the king’s grace.
[Footnote: The story is borrowed, language and all, from the
Morte d’Arthur.—M.T.]
“Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss. Now ye shall wit
that that very duke and his six sons are they whom but few
days past you also did overcome and send to Arthur’s court!”

“Why, Sandy, you can’t mean it!”

“An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me.”

“Well, well, well,—now who would ever have thought it? One
whole duke and six dukelets; why, Sandy, it was an elegant
haul. Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it
is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there IS
money in it, after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever
engage in it as a business, for I wouldn’t. No sound and
legitimate business can be established on a basis of
speculation. A successful whirl in the knight-errantry line—
now what is it when you blow away the non sense and come
down to the cold facts? It’s just a corner in pork, that’s all,
and you can’t make anything else out of it. You’re rich—yes,
—suddenly rich—for about a day, maybe a week; then
somebody corners the market on YOU, and down goes your
bucketshop; ain’t that so, Sandy?”

“Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth, bewraying

simple language in such sort that the words do seem to come
endlong and overthwart—”

“There’s no use in beating about the bush and trying to get

around it that way, Sandy, it’s SO, just as I say. I KNOW it’s
so. And, moreover, when you come right down to the
bedrock, knight-errantry is WORSE than pork; for whatever
happens, the pork’s left, and so somebody’s benefited
anyway; but when the market breaks, in a knight-errantry
whirl, and every knight in the pool passes in his checks, what
have you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of battered
corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware. Can you call
THOSE assets? Give me pork, every time. Am I right?”

“Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold

matters whereunto the confusions of these but late
adventured haps and fortunings whereby not I alone nor you
alone, but every each of us, meseem eth—”

“No, it’s not your head, Sandy. Your head’s all right, as far as
it goes, but you don’t know business; that’s where the
trouble is. It unfits you to argue about business, and you’re
wrong to be always trying. However, that aside, it was a good
haul, anyway, and will breed a handsome crop of reputation
in Arthur’s court. And speaking of the cowboys, what a
curious country this is for women and men that never get
old. Now there’s Morgan le Fay, as fresh and young as a
Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and here is this old duke of
the South Marches still slashing away with sword and lance
at his time of life, after raising such a family as he has
raised. As I understand it, Sir Gawaine killed seven of his
sons, and still he had six left for Sir Marhaus and me to take
into camp. And then there was that damsel of sixty winter of
age still excursioning around in her frosty bloom—How old
are you, Sandy?”

It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her. The mill
had shut down for repairs, or something.
Chapter XX. The Ogre’s Castle
BETWEEN six and nine we made ten miles, which was
plenty for a horse carrying triple—man, woman, and armor;
then we stopped for a long nooning under some trees by a
limpid brook.

Right so came by and by a knight riding; and as he drew

near he made dolorous moan, and by the words of it I
perceived that he was cursing and swearing; yet
nevertheless was I glad of his coming, for that I saw he bore
a bulletin-board whereon in letters all of shining gold was
writ:

“USE PETERSON’S PROPHYLACTIC TOOTH-BRUSH—ALL

THE GO.”

I was glad of his coming, for even by this token I knew him
for knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de la Montaine, a burly
great fellow whose chief distinction was that he had come
within an ace of sending Sir Launcelot down over his horse-
tail once. He was never long in a stranger’s presence without
finding some pretext or other to let out that great fact. But
there was another fact of nearly the same size, which he
never pushed upon anybody unasked, and yet never
withheld when asked: that was, that the reason he didn’t
quite succeed was, that he was interrupted and sent down
over horse-tail himself. This innocent vast lubber did not see
any particular difference between the two facts. I liked him,
for he was earnest in his work, and very valuable. And he
was so fine to look at, with his broad mailed shoulders, and
the grand leonine set of his plumed head, and his big shield
with its quaint device of a gauntleted hand clutching a
prophylactic tooth-brush, with motto: “Try Noyoudont.” This
was a tooth-wash that I was introducing.

He was aweary, he said, and indeed he looked it; but he

would not alight. He said he was after the stove-polish man;
and with this he broke out cursing and swearing anew. The
bulletin-boarder referred to was Sir Ossaise of Surluse, a
brave knight, and of considerable celebrity on account of his
having tried conclusions in a tournament once, with no less a
Mogul that Sir Gaheris himself—although not successfully. He
was of a light and laughing disposition, and to him nothing in
this world was serious. It was for this reason that I had
chosen him to work up a stove-polish sentiment. There were
no stoves yet, and so there could be nothing serious about
stove-polish. All that the agent needed to do was to deftly
and by degrees prepare the public for the great change, and
have them established in predilections toward neatness
against the time when the stove should appear upon the
stage.

Sir Madok was very bitter, and brake out anew with cursings.
He said he had cursed his soul to rags; and yet he would not
get down from his horse, neither would he take any rest, or
listen to any comfort, until he should have found Sir Ossaise
and settled this ac count. It appeared, by what I could piece
together of the unprofane fragments of his statement, that
he had chanced upon Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning,
and been told that if he would make a short cut across the
fields and swamps and broken hills and glades, he could head
off a company of travelers who would be rare customers for
prophylactics and tooth-wash. With characteristic zeal Sir
Madok had plunged away at once upon this quest, and after
three hours of awful crosslot riding had overhauled his game.
And behold, it was the five patriarchs that had been released
from the dungeons the evening before! Poor old creatures, it
was all of twenty years since any one of them had known
what it was to be equipped with any remaining snag or
remnant of a tooth.

“Blank-blank-blank him,” said Sir Madok, “an I do not stove-

polish him an I may find him, leave it to me; for never no
knight that hight Ossaise or aught else may do me this
disservice and bide on live, an I may find him, the which I
have thereunto sworn a great oath this day.”

And with these words and others, he lightly took his spear
and gat him thence. In the middle of the afternoon we came
upon one of those very patriarchs ourselves, in the edge of a
poor village. He was basking in the love of relatives and
friends whom he had not seen for fifty years; and about him
and caressing him were also descendants of his own body
whom he had never seen at all till now; but to him these
were all strangers, his memory was gone, his mind was
stagnant. It seemed incredible that a man could outlast half
a century shut up in a dark hole like a rat, but here were his
old wife and some old comrades to testify to it. They could
remember him as he was in the freshness and strength of his
young manhood, when he kissed his child and delivered it to
its mother’s hands and went away into that long oblivion.
The people at the castle could not tell within half a
generation the length of time the man had been shut up
there for his unrecorded and forgotten offense; but this old
wife knew; and so did her old child, who stood there among
her married sons and daughters trying to realize a father
who had been to her a name, a thought, a formless image, a
tradition, all her life, and now was suddenly concreted into
actual flesh and blood and set before her face.

It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that account that I

have made room for it here, but on account of a thing which
seemed to me still more curious. To wit, that this dreadful
matter brought from these downtrodden people no outburst
of rage against these oppressors. They had been heritors and
subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing could
have startled them but a kindness. Yes, here was a curious
revelation, indeed, of the depth to which this people had
been sunk in slavery. Their entire being was reduced to a
monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, dumb
uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in
this life. Their very imagination was dead. When you can say
that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no
lower deep for him.

I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the
sort of experience for a statesman to en counter who was
planning out a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could
not help bringing up the unget-aroundable fact that, all
gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary
notwithstanding, no people in the world ever did achieve
their freedom by goody- goody talk and moral suasion: it
being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed
must BEGIN in blood, whatever may answer afterward. If
history teaches anything, it teaches that. What this folk
needed, then, was a Reign of Terror and a guillotine, and I
was the wrong man for them.

Two days later, toward noon, Sandy began to show signs of

excitement and feverish expectancy. She said we were
approaching the ogre’s castle. I was surprised into an
uncomfortable shock. The object of our quest had gradually
dropped out of my mind; this sudden resurrection of it made
it seem quite a real and startling thing for a moment, and
roused up in me a smart interest. Sandy’s excitement
increased every moment; and so did mine, for that sort of
thing is catching. My heart got to thumping. You can’t reason
with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about
things which the intellect scorns. Presently, when Sandy slid
from the horse, motioned me to stop, and went creeping
stealthily, with her head bent nearly to her knees, toward a
row of bushes that bordered a declivity, the thumpings grew
stronger and quicker. And they kept it up while she was
gaining her ambush and getting her glimpse over the
declivity; and also while I was creeping to her side on my
knees. Her eyes were burning now, as she pointed with her
finger, and said in a panting whisper:

“The castle! The castle! Lo, where it looms!”

What a welcome disappointment I experienced! I said:

“Castle? It is nothing but a pigsty; a pigsty with a wattled

fence around it.”

She looked surprised and distressed. The animation faded

out of her face; and during many moments she was lost in
thought and silent. Then:

“It was not enchanted aforetime,” she said in a musing

fashion, as if to herself. “And how strange is this marvel, and
how awful—that to the one perception it is enchanted and
dight in a base and shameful aspect; yet to the perception of
the other it is not enchanted, hath suffered no change, but
stands firm and stately still, girt with its moat and waving its
banners in the blue air from its towers. And God shield us,
how it pricks the heart to see again these gracious captives,
and the sorrow deepened in their sweet faces! We have
tarried along, and are to blame.”
I saw my cue. The castle was enchanted to me, not to her. It
would be wasted time to try to argue her out of her delusion,
it couldn’t be done; I must just humor it. So I said:

“This is a common case—the enchanting of a thing to one

eye and leaving it in its proper form to another. You have
heard of it before, Sandy, though you haven’t happened to
experience it. But no harm is done. In fact, it is lucky the
way it is. If these ladies were hogs to everybody and to
themselves, it would be necessary to break the enchantment,
and that might be impossible if one failed to find out the
particular process of the enchantment. And hazardous, too;
for in attempting a disenchantment without the true key, you
are liable to err, and turn your hogs into dogs, and the dogs
into cats, the cats into rats, and so on, and end by reducing
your materials to nothing finally, or to an odorless gas which
you can’t follow—which, of course, amounts to the same
thing. But here, by good luck, no one’s eyes but mine are
under the enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to
dissolve it. These ladies remain ladies to you, and to
themselves, and to everybody else; and at the same time
they will suffer in no way from my delusion, for when I know
that an ostensible hog is a lady, that is enough for me, I
know how to treat her.”

“Thanks, oh, sweet my lord, thou talkest like an angel. And I

know that thou wilt deliver them, for that thou art minded to
great deeds and art as strong a knight of your hands and as
brave to will and to do, as any that is on live.”

“I will not leave a princess in the sty, Sandy. Are those three
yonder that to my disordered eyes are starveling swine-
herds—”

“The ogres, Are they changed also? It is most wonderful. Now

am I fearful; for how canst thou strike with sure aim when
five of their nine cubits of stature are to thee invisible? Ah,
go warily, fair sir; this is a mightier emprise than I wend.”

“You be easy, Sandy. All I need to know is, how MUCH of an

ogre is invisible; then I know how to locate his vitals. Don’t
you be afraid, I will make short work of these bunco-
steerers. Stay where you are.”

I left Sandy kneeling there, corpse-faced but plucky and

hopeful, and rode down to the pigsty, and struck up a trade
with the swine-herds. I won their gratitude by buying out all
the hogs at the lump sum of sixteen pennies, which was
rather above latest quotations. I was just in time; for the
Church, the lord of the manor, and the rest of the tax-
gatherers would have been along next day and swept off
pretty much all the stock, leaving the swine-herds very short
of hogs and Sandy out of princesses. But now the tax people
could be paid in cash, and there would be a stake left
besides. One of the men had ten children; and he said that
last year when a priest came and of his ten pigs took the
fattest one for tithes, the wife burst out upon him, and
offered him a child and said:

“Thou beast without bowels of mercy, why leave me my child,

yet rob me of the wherewithal to feed it?”

How curious. The same thing had happened in the Wales of

my day, under this same old Established Church, which was
supposed by many to have changed its nature when it
changed its disguise.

I sent the three men away, and then opened the sty gate and
beckoned Sandy to come—which she did; and not leisurely,
but with the rush of a prairie fire. And when I saw her fling
herself upon those hogs, with tears of joy running down her
cheeks, and strain them to her heart, and kiss them, and
caress them, and call them reverently by grand princely
names, I was ashamed of her, ashamed of the human race.

We had to drive those hogs home—ten miles; and no ladies

were ever more fickle-minded or contrary. They would stay
in no road, no path; they broke out through the brush on all
sides, and flowed away in all directions, over rocks, and hills,
and the roughest places they could find. And they must not
be struck, or roughly accosted; Sandy could not bear to see
them treated in ways unbecoming their rank. The
troublesomest old sow of the lot had to be called my Lady,
and your Highness, like the rest. It is annoy ing and difficult
to scour around after hogs, in armor. There was one small
countess, with an iron ring in her snout and hardly any hair
on her back, that was the devil for perversity. She gave me a
race of an hour, over all sorts of country, and then we were
right where we had started from, having made not a rod of
real progress. I seized her at last by the tail, and brought her
along squealing. When I overtook Sandy she was horrified,
and said it was in the last degree indelicate to drag a
countess by her train.

We got the hogs home just at dark—most of them. The

princess Nerovens de Morganore was missing, and two of her
ladies in waiting: namely, Miss Angela Bohun, and the
Demoiselle Elaine Courtemains, the former of these two
being a young black sow with a white star in her forehead,
and the latter a brown one with thin legs and a slight limp in
the forward shank on the starboard side—a couple of the
tryingest blisters to drive that I ever saw. Also among the
missing were several mere baronesses—and I wanted them
to stay missing; but no, all that sausage-meat had to be
found; so servants were sent out with torches to scour the
woods and hills to that end.

Of course, the whole drove was housed in the house, and,

great guns!—well, I never saw anything like it. Nor ever
heard anything like it. And never smelt anything like it. It
was like an insurrection in a gasometer.
Chapter XXI. The Pilgrims
WHEN I did get to bed at last I was unspeakably tired; the
stretching out, and the relaxing of the long-tense muscles,
how luxurious, how delicious! but that was as far as I could
get—sleep was out of the question for the present. The
ripping and tearing and squealing of the nobility up and down
the halls and corridors was pandemonium come again, and
kept me broad awake. Being awake, my thoughts were busy,
of course; and mainly they busied themselves with Sandy’s
curious delusion. Here she was, as sane a person as the
kingdom could produce; and yet, from my point of view she
was acting like a crazy woman. My land, the power of
training! of influence! of education! It can bring a body up to
believe any thing. I had to put myself in Sandy’s place to
realize that she was not a lunatic. Yes, and put her in mine,
to demonstrate how easy it is to seem a lunatic to a person
who has not been taught as you have been taught. If I had
told Sandy I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced by
enchantment, spin along fifty miles an hour; had seen a
man, unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and
soar out of sight among the clouds; and had listened, without
any necromancer’s help, to the conversation of a person who
was several hundred miles away, Sandy would not merely
have supposed me to be crazy, she would have thought she
knew it. Everybody around her believed in enchantments;
nobody had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could be
turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs, would have
been the same as my doubting among Connecticut people
the actuality of the telephone and its wonders,—and in both
cases would be absolute proof of a diseased mind, an
unsettled reason. Yes, Sandy was sane; that must be
admitted. If I also would be sane—to Sandy—I must keep my
superstitions about unenchanted and unmiraculous
locomotives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also, I
believed that the world was not flat, and hadn’t pillars under
it to support it, nor a canopy over it to turn off a universe of
water that occupied all space above; but as I was the only
person in the kingdom afflicted with such impious and
criminal opinions, I recognized that it would be good wisdom
to keep quiet about this matter, too, if I did not wish to be
suddenly shunned and forsaken by everybody as a madman.

The next morning Sandy assembled the swine in the dining-

room and gave them their breakfast, waiting upon them
personally and manifesting in every way the deep reverence
which the natives of her island, ancient and modern, have
always felt for rank, let its outward casket and the mental
and moral contents be what they may. I could have eaten
with the hogs if I had had birth approaching my lofty official
rank; but I hadn’t, and so accepted the unavoidable slight
and made no complaint. Sandy and I had our breakfast at
the second table. The family were not at home. I said:

“How many are in the family, Sandy, and where do they keep
themselves?”

“Family?”

“Yes.”

“Which family, good my lord?”

“Why, this family; your own family.”

“Sooth to say, I understand you not. I have no family.”

“No family? Why, Sandy, isn’t this your home?”

“Now how indeed might that be? I have no home.”

“Well, then, whose house is this?”

“Ah, wit you well I would tell you an I knew myself.”

“Come—you don’t even know these people? Then who invited

us here?”

“None invited us. We but came; that is all.”

“Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary performance. The

effrontery of it is beyond admiration. We blandly march into
a man’s house, and cram it full of the only really valuable
nobility the sun has yet discovered in the earth, and then it
turns out that we don’t even know the man’s name. How did
you ever venture to take this extravagant liberty? I
supposed, of course, it was your home. What will the man
say?”

“What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but give

thanks?”

“Thanks for what?”

Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise:

“Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with strange

words. Do ye dream that one of his estate is like to have the
honor twice in his life to entertain company such as we have
brought to grace his house withal?”

“Well, no—when you come to that. No, it’s an even bet that
this is the first time he has had a treat like this.”

“Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same by grateful

speech and due humility; he were a dog, else, and the heir
and ancestor of dogs.”

To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It might

become more so. It might be a good idea to muster the hogs
and move on. So I said:

“The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the nobility

together and be moving.”

“Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?”

“We want to take them to their home, don’t we?”

“La, but list to him! They be of all the regions of the earth!
Each must hie to her own home; wend you we might do all
these journeys in one so brief life as He hath appointed that
created life, and thereto death likewise with help of Adam,
who by sin done through persuasion of his helpmeet, she
being wrought upon and bewrayed by the beguilements of
the great enemy of man, that serpent hight Satan, aforetime
consecrated and set apart unto that evil work by over
mastering spite and envy begotten in his heart through fell
ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature erst so white
and pure whenso it hove with the shining multitudes its
brethren-born in glade and shade of that fair heaven wherein
all such as native be to that rich estate and—”

“Great Scott!”

“My lord?”

“Well, you know we haven’t got time for this sort of thing.
Don’t you see, we could distribute these people around the
earth in less time than it is going to take you to explain that
we can’t. We mustn’t talk now, we must act. You want to be
careful; you mustn’t let your mill get the start of you that
way, at a time like this. To business now—and sharp’s the
word. Who is to take the aristocracy home?”

“Even their friends. These will come for them from the far
parts of the earth.”

This was lightning from a clear sky, for unexpected ness; and
the relief of it was like pardon to a prisoner. She would
remain to deliver the goods, of course.

“Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is handsomely and

successfully ended, I will go home and report; and if ever
another one—”

“I also am ready; I will go with thee.”

This was recalling the pardon.

“How? You will go with me? Why should you?”

“Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think? That were

dishonor. I may not part from thee until in knightly
encounter in the field some overmatching champion shall
fairly win and fairly wear me. I were to blame an I thought
that that might ever hap.”

“Elected for the long term,” I sighed to myself. “I may as well

make the best of it.” So then I spoke up and said:

“All right; let us make a start.”

While she was gone to cry her farewells over the pork, I gave
that whole peerage away to the servants. And I asked them
to take a duster and dust around a little where the nobilities
had mainly lodged and promenaded; but they considered
that that would be hardly worth while, and would moreover
be a rather grave departure from custom, and therefore
likely to make talk. A departure from custom—that settled it;
it was a nation capable of committing any crime but that. The
servants said they would follow the fashion, a fashion grown
sacred through immemorial observance; they would scatter
fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the
evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer
visible. It was a kind of satire on Nature: it was the scientific
method, the geologic method; it deposited the history of the
family in a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig
through it and tell by the remains of each period what
changes of diet the family had introduced successively for a
hundred years.

The first thing we struck that day was a procession of

pilgrims. It was not going our way, but we joined it,
nevertheless; for it was hourly being borne in upon me now,
that if I would govern this country wisely, I must be posted in
the details of its life, and not at second hand, but by personal
observation and scrutiny.

This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer’s in this: that it

had in it a sample of about all the upper occupations and
professions the country could show, and a corresponding
variety of costume. There were young men and old men,
young women and old women, lively folk and grave folk.
They rode upon mules and horses, and there was not a side-
saddle in the party; for this specialty was to remain unknown
in England for nine hundred years yet.

It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious, happy,

merry and full of unconscious coarsenesses and innocent
indecencies. What they regarded as the merry tale went the
continual round and caused no more embarrassment than it
would have caused in the best English society twelve
centuries later. Practical jokes worthy of the English wits of
the first quarter of the far-off nineteenth century were
sprung here and there and yonder along the line, and
compelled the delightedest applause; and sometimes when a
bright remark was made at one end of the procession and
started on its travels toward the other, you could note its
progress all the way by the sparkling spray of laughter it
threw off from its bows as it plowed along; and also by the
blushes of the mules in its wake.

Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pilgrimage, and she
posted me. She said:

“They journey to the Valley of Holiness, for to be blessed of

the godly hermits and drink of the miraculous waters and be
cleansed from sin.”

“Where is this watering place?”

“It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders of the land

that hight the Cuckoo Kingdom.”

“Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?”

“Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so. Of old time

there lived there an abbot and his monks. Belike were none
in the world more holy than these; for they gave themselves
to study of pious books, and spoke not the one to the other,
or indeed to any, and ate decayed herbs and naught thereto,
and slept hard, and prayed much, and washed never; also
they wore the same garment until it fell from their bodies
through age and decay. Right so came they to be known of
all the world by reason of these holy austerities, and visited
by rich and poor, and reverenced.”
“Proceed.”

“But always there was lack of water there. Whereas, upon a

time, the holy abbot prayed, and for answer a great stream
of clear water burst forth by miracle in a desert place. Now
were the fickle monks tempted of the Fiend, and they
wrought with their abbot unceasingly by beggings and
beseechings that he would construct a bath; and when he
was become aweary and might not resist more, he said have
ye your will, then, and granted that they asked. Now mark
thou what ’tis to forsake the ways of purity the which He
loveth, and wanton with such as be worldly and an offense.
These monks did enter into the bath and come thence
washed as white as snow; and lo, in that moment His sign
appeared, in miraculous rebuke! for His insulted waters
ceased to flow, and utterly vanished away.”

“They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that kind of crime

is regarded in this country.”

“Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had been of
perfect life for long, and differing in naught from the angels.
Prayers, tears, torturings of the flesh, all was vain to beguile
that water to flow again. Even processions; even burnt-
offerings; even votive candles to the Virgin, did fail every
each of them; and all in the land did marvel.”

“How odd to find that even this industry has its financial
panics, and at times sees its assignats and greenbacks
languish to zero, and everything come to a standstill. Go on,
Sandy.”

“And so upon a time, after year and day, the good abbot
made humble surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold,
His anger was in that moment appeased, and the waters
gushed richly forth again, and even unto this day they have
not ceased to flow in that generous measure.”

“Then I take it nobody has washed since.”

“He that would essay it could have his halter free; yes, and
swiftly would he need it, too.”

“The community has prospered since?”

“Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went
abroad into all lands. From every land came monks to join;
they came even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the
monastery added building to building, and yet others to
these, and so spread wide its arms and took them in. And
nuns came, also; and more again, and yet more; and built
over against the monastery on the yon side of the vale, and
added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery.
And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their
loving labors together, and together they built a fair great
foundling asylum midway of the valley between.”

“You spoke of some hermits, Sandy.”

“These have gathered there from the ends of the earth. A

hermit thriveth best where there be multitudes of pilgrims.
Ye shall not find no hermit of no sort wanting. If any shall
mention a hermit of a kind he thinketh new and not to be
found but in some far strange land, let him but scratch
among the holes and caves and swamps that line that Valley
of Holiness, and whatsoever be his breed, it skills not, he
shall find a sample of it there.”

I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat good-

humored face, purposing to make myself agreeable and pick
up some further crumbs of fact; but I had hardly more than
scraped acquaintance with him when he began eagerly and
awkwardly to lead up, in the immemorial way, to that same
old anecdote—the one Sir Dinadan told me, what time I got
into trouble with Sir Sagramor and was challenged of him on
account of it. I excused myself and dropped to the rear of the
procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence from this
troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day of broken rest,
of cloud and storm, of weary struggle and monotonous
defeat; and yet shrinking from the change, as remembering
how long eternity is, and how many have wended thither
who know that anecdote.

Early in the afternoon we overtook another procession of

pilgrims; but in this one was no merriment, no jokes, no
laughter, no playful ways, nor any happy giddiness, whether
of youth or age. Yet both were here, both age and youth;
gray old men and women, strong men and women of middle
age, young husbands, young wives, little boys and girls, and
three babies at the breast. Even the children were smileless;
there was not a face among all these half a hundred people
but was cast down, and bore that set expression of
hopelessness which is bred of long and hard trials and old
acquaintance with despair. They were slaves. Chains led from
their fettered feet and their manacled hands to a sole-leather
belt about their waists; and all except the children were also
linked together in a file six feet apart, by a single chain
which led from collar to collar all down the line. They were
on foot, and had tramped three hundred miles in eighteen
days, upon the cheapest odds and ends of food, and stingy
rations of that. They had slept in these chains every night,
bundled together like swine. They had upon their bodies
some poor rags, but they could not be said to be clothed.
Their irons had chafed the skin from their ankles and made
sores which were ulcerated and wormy. Their naked feet
were torn, and none walked without a limp. Originally there
had been a hundred of these unfortunates, but about half
had been sold on the trip. The trader in charge of them rode
a horse and carried a whip with a short handle and a long
heavy lash divided into several knotted tails at the end. With
this whip he cut the shoulders of any that tottered from
weariness and pain, and straightened them up. He did not
speak; the whip conveyed his desire without that. None of
these poor creatures looked up as we rode along by; they
showed no consciousness of our presence. And they made no
sound but one; that was the dull and awful clank of their
chains from end to end of the long file, as forty-three
burdened feet rose and fell in unison. The file moved in a
cloud of its own making.

All these faces were gray with a coating of dust. One has
seen the like of this coating upon furniture in unoccupied
houses, and has written his idle thought in it with his finger. I
was reminded of this when I noticed the faces of some of
those women, young mothers carrying babes that were near
to death and freedom, how a something in their hearts was
written in the dust upon their faces, plain to see, and lord,
how plain to read! for it was the track of tears. One of these
young mothers was but a girl, and it hurt me to the heart to
read that writing, and reflect that it was come up out of the
breast of such a child, a breast that ought not to know
trouble yet, but only the glad ness of the morning of life; and
no doubt—

She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down came the
lash and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder. It
stung me as if I had been hit in stead. The master halted the
file and jumped from his horse. He stormed and swore at this
girl, and said she had made annoyance enough with her
laziness, and as this was the last chance he should have, he
would settle the account now. She dropped on her knees and
put up her hands and began to beg, and cry, and implore, in
a passion of terror, but the master gave no attention. He
snatched the child from her, and then made the men-slaves
who were chained before and behind her throw her on the
ground and hold her there and expose her body; and then he
laid on with his lash like a madman till her back was flayed,
she shrieking and struggling the while piteously. One of the
men who was holding her turned away his face, and for this
humanity he was reviled and flogged.

All our pilgrims looked on and commented—on the expert

way in which the whip was handled. They were too much
hardened by lifelong everyday familiarity with slavery to
notice that there was anything else in the exhibition that
invited comment. This was what slavery could do, in the way
of ossifying what one may call the superior lobe of human
feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted people, and
they would not have allowed that man to treat a horse like
that.

I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves free, but
that would not do. I must not interfere too much and get
myself a name for riding over the country’s laws and the
citizen’s rights roughshod. If I lived and prospered I would be
the death of slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would
try to fix it so that when I became its executioner it should
be by command of the nation.

Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; and now arrived
a landed proprietor who had bought this girl a few miles
back, deliverable here where her irons could be taken off.
They were removed; then there was a squabble between the
gentleman and the dealer as to which should pay the
blacksmith. The moment the girl was delivered from her
irons, she flung herself, all tears and frantic sobbings, into
the arms of the slave who had turned away his face when
she was whipped. He strained her to his breast, and
smothered her face and the child’s with kisses, and washed
them with the rain of his tears. I suspected. I inquired. Yes, I
was right; it was husband and wife. They had to be torn
apart by force; the girl had to be dragged away, and she
struggled and fought and shrieked like one gone mad till a
turn of the road hid her from sight; and even after that, we
could still make out the fading plaint of those receding
shrieks. And the hus band and father, with his wife and child
gone, never to be seen by him again in life?—well, the look
of him one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I
knew I should never get his picture out of my mind again,
and there it is to this day, to wring my heartstrings whenever
I think of it.

We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall, and when I

rose next morning and looked abroad, I was ware where a
knight came riding in the golden glory of the new day, and
recognized him for knight of mine—Sir Ozana le Cure Hardy.
He was in the gentlemen’s furnishing line, and his
missionarying specialty was plug hats. He was clothed all in
steel, in the beautifulest armor of the time—up to where his
helmet ought to have been; but he hadn’t any helmet, he
wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was ridiculous a spectacle
as one might want to see. It was another of my surreptitious
schemes for extinguishing knighthood by making it grotesque
and absurd. Sir Ozana’s saddle was hung about with leather
hat boxes, and every time he overcame a wandering knight
he swore him into my service and fitted him with a plug and
made him wear it. I dressed and ran down to welcome Sir
Ozana and get his news.

“How is trade?” I asked.

“Ye will note that I have but these four left; yet were they
sixteen whenas I got me from Camelot.”

“Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana. Where have
you been foraging of late?”

“I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness, please you

sir.”

“I am pointed for that place myself. Is there anything stirring

in the monkery, more than common?”

“By the mass ye may not question it!.... Give him good feed,
boy, and stint it not, an thou valuest thy crown; so get ye
lightly to the stable and do even as I bid...... Sir, it is parlous
news I bring, and—be these pilgrims? Then ye may not do
better, good folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to tell,
sith it concerneth you, forasmuch as ye go to find that ye will
not find, and seek that ye will seek in vain, my life being
hostage for my word, and my word and message being these,
namely: That a hap has happened where of the like has not
been seen no more but once this two hundred years, which
was the first and last time that that said misfortune strake
the holy valley in that form by commandment of the Most
High whereto by reasons just and causes thereunto
contributing, wherein the matter—”

“The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow!” This shout burst

from twenty pilgrim mouths at once.

“Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it, even when ye
spake. “
“Has somebody been washing again?”

“Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It is thought to be

some other sin, but none wit what.”

“How are they feeling about the calamity?”

“None may describe it in words. The fount is these nine days

dry. The prayers that did begin then, and the lamentations in
sackcloth and ashes, and the holy processions, none of these
have ceased nor night nor day; and so the monks and the
nuns and the foundlings be all exhausted, and do hang up
prayers writ upon parchment, sith that no strength is left in
man to lift up voice. And at last they sent for thee, Sir Boss,
to try magic and enchantment; and if you could not come,
then was the messenger to fetch Merlin, and he is there
these three days now, and saith he will fetch that water
though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to
accomplish it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and
call upon his hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a
whiff of moisture hath he started yet, even so much as might
qualify as mist upon a copper mirror an ye count not the
barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt sun and sun over the
dire labors of his task; and if ye—”

Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I showed to Sir

Ozana these words which I had written on the inside of his
hat: Chemical Department, Laboratory extension, Section G.
Pxxp. Send two of first size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4,
together with the proper complementary details—and two of
my trained assistants.” And I said:

“Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly, brave knight,
and show the writing to Clarence, and tell him to have these
required matters in the Valley of Holiness with all possible
dispatch.”

“I will well, Sir Boss,” and he was off.

Chapter XXII. The Holy Fountain
THE pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would
have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult
journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and
they learned that the main thing they had come for had
ceased to exist, they didn’t do as horses or cats or angle-
worms would probably have done—turn back and get at
something profitable—no, anxious as they had before been to
see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty
times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to
be. There is no accounting for human beings.

We made good time; and a couple of hours before sunset we

stood upon the high confines of the Valley of Holiness, and
our eyes swept it from end to end and noted its features.
That is, its large features. These were the three masses of
buildings. They were distant and isolated temporalities
shrunken to toy constructions in the lonely waste of what
seemed a desert—and was. Such a scene is always mournful,
it is so impressively still, and looks so steeped in death. But
there was a sound here which interrupted the stillness only
to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint far sound of
tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the passing breeze,
and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly knew whether we
heard it with our ears or with our spirits.

We reached the monastery before dark, and there the males

were given lodging, but the women were sent over to the
nunnery. The bells were close at hand now, and their solemn
booming smote upon the ear like a message of doom. A
superstitious despair possessed the heart of every monk and
published itself in his ghastly face. Everywhere, these black-
robed, soft-sandaled, tallow-visaged specters appeared,
flitted about and disappeared, noiseless as the creatures of a
troubled dream, and as uncanny.

The old abbot’s joy to see me was pathetic. Even to tears;

but he did the shedding himself. He said:

“Delay not, son, but get to thy saving work. An we bring not
the water back again, and soon, we are ruined, and the good
work of two hundred years must end. And see thou do it with
enchantments that be holy, for the Church will not endure
that work in her cause be done by devil’s magic.”

“When I work, Father, be sure there will be no devil’s work

connected with it. I shall use no arts that come of the devil,
and no elements not created by the hand of God. But is
Merlin working strictly on pious lines?”

“Ah, he said he would, my son, he said he would, and took

oath to make his promise good.”

“Well, in that case, let him proceed.”

“But surely you will not sit idle by, but help?”

“It will not answer to mix methods, Father; neither would it

be professional courtesy. Two of a trade must not underbid
each other. We might as well cut rates and be done with it; it
would arrive at that in the end. Merlin has the contract; no
other magician can touch it till he throws it up.”

“But I will take it from him; it is a terrible emergency and

the act is thereby justified. And if it were not so, who will
give law to the Church? The Church giveth law to all; and
what she wills to do, that she may do, hurt whom it may. I
will take it from him; you shall begin upon the moment.”
“It may not be, Father. No doubt, as you say, where power is
supreme, one can do as one likes and suffer no injury; but
we poor magicians are not so situated. Merlin is a very good
magician in a small way, and has quite a neat provincial
reputation. He is struggling along, doing the best he can, and
it would not be etiquette for me to take his job until he
himself abandons it.”

The abbot’s face lighted.

“Ah, that is simple. There are ways to persuade him to

abandon it.”

“No-no, Father, it skills not, as these people say. If he were

persuaded against his will, he would load that well with a
malicious enchantment which would balk me until I found out
its secret. It might take a month. I could set up a little
enchantment of mine which I call the telephone, and he
could not find out its secret in a hundred years. Yes, you
perceive, he might block me for a month. Would you like to
risk a month in a dry time like this?”

“A month! The mere thought of it maketh me to shudder.

Have it thy way, my son. But my heart is heavy with this
disappointment. Leave me, and let me wear my spirit with
weariness and waiting, even as I have done these ten long
days, counterfeiting thus the thing that is called rest, the
prone body making outward sign of repose where inwardly is
none.”

Of course, it would have been best, all round, for Merlin to

waive etiquette and quit and call it half a day, since he would
never be able to start that water, for he was a true magician
of the time; which is to say, the big miracles, the ones that
gave him his reputation, always had the luck to be performed
when nobody but Merlin was present; he couldn’t start this
well with all this crowd around to see; a crowd was as bad for
a magician’s miracle in that day as it was for a spiritualist’s
miracle in mine; there was sure to be some skeptic on hand
to turn up the gas at the crucial moment and spoil
everything. But I did not want Merlin to retire from the job
until I was ready to take hold of it effectively myself; and I
could not do that until I got my things from Camelot, and
that would take two or three days.

My presence gave the monks hope, and cheered them up a

good deal; insomuch that they ate a square meal that night
for the first time in ten days. As soon as their stomachs had
been properly reinforced with food, their spirits began to rise
fast; when the mead began to go round they rose faster. By
the time everybody was half-seas over, the holy community
was in good shape to make a night of it; so we stayed by the
board and put it through on that line. Matters got to be very
jolly. Good old questionable stories were told that made the
tears run down and cavernous mouths stand wide and the
round bellies shake with laughter; and questionable songs
were bellowed out in a mighty chorus that drowned the boom
of the tolling bells.

At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was the success of

it. Not right off, of course, for the native of those islands does
not, as a rule, dissolve upon the early applications of a
humorous thing; but the fifth time I told it, they began to
crack in places; the eight time I told it, they began to
crumble; at the twelfth repetition they fell apart in chunks;
and at the fifteenth they disintegrated, and I got a broom
and swept them up. This language is figurative. Those
islanders—well, they are slow pay at first, in the matter of
return for your investment of effort, but in the end they
make the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast.

I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was there,

enchanting away like a beaver, but not raising the moisture.
He was not in a pleasant humor; and every time I hinted
that perhaps this contract was a shade too hefty for a novice
he unlimbered his tongue and cursed like a bishop—French
bishop of the Regency days, I mean.

Matters were about as I expected to find them. The

“fountain” was an ordinary well, it had been dug in the
ordinary way, and stoned up in the ordinary way. There was
no miracle about it. Even the lie that had created its
reputation was not miraculous; I could have told it myself,
with one hand tied behind me. The well was in a dark
chamber which stood in the center of a cut-stone chapel,
whose walls were hung with pious pictures of a workmanship
that would have made a chromo feel good; pictures
historically commemorative of curative miracles which had
been achieved by the waters when nobody was looking. That
is, nobody but angels; they are always on deck when there is
a miracle to the fore—so as to get put in the picture,
perhaps. Angels are as fond of that as a fire company; look
at the old masters.

The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps; the water was

drawn with a windlass and chain by monks, and poured into
troughs which delivered it into stone reservoirs outside in
the chapel—when there was water to draw, I mean—and
none but monks could enter the well-chamber. I entered it,
for I had temporary authority to do so, by courtesy of my
professional brother and subordinate. But he hadn’t entered
it himself. He did everything by incantations; he never
worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and used his
eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could have cured the
well by natural means, and then turned it into a miracle in
the customary way; but no, he was an old numskull, a
magician who believed in his own magic; and no magician
can thrive who is handicapped with a superstition like that.

I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak; that some of
the wall stones near the bottom had fallen and exposed
fissures that allowed the water to escape. I measured the
chain—98 feet. Then I called in couple of monks, locked the
door, took a candle, and made them lower me in the bucket.
When the chain was all paid out, the candle confirmed my
suspicion; a considerable section of the wall was gone,
exposing a good big fissure.

I almost regretted that my theory about the well’s trouble

was correct, because I had another one that had a showy
point or two about it for a miracle. I remembered that in
America, many centuries later, when an oil well ceased to
flow, they used to blast it out with a dynamite torpedo. If I
should find this well dry and no explanation of it, I could
astonish these people most nobly by having a person of no
especial value drop a dynamite bomb into it. It was my idea
to appoint Merlin. However, it was plain that there was no
occasion for the bomb. One cannot have everything the way
he would like it. A man has no business to be depressed by a
disappointment, any way; he ought to make up his mind to
get even. That is what I did. I said to myself, I am in no
hurry, I can wait; that bomb will come good yet. And it did,
too.

When I was above ground again, I turned out the monks,

and let down a fish-line; the well was a hundred and fifty
feet deep, and there was forty-one feet of water in it I I
called in a monk and asked:

“How deep is the well?”

“That, sir, I wit not, having never been told.”

“How does the water usually stand in it?”

“Near to the top, these two centuries, as the testimony

goeth, brought down to us through our predecessors.”

It was true—as to recent times at least—for there was

witness to it, and better witness than a monk; only about
twenty or thirty feet of the chain showed wear and use, the
rest of it was unworn and rusty. What had happened when
the well gave out that other time? Without doubt some
practical person had come along and mended the leak, and
then had come up and told the abbot he had discovered by
divination that if the sinful bath were destroyed the well
would flow again. The leak had befallen again now, and these
children would have prayed, and processioned, and tolled
their bells for heavenly succor till they all dried up and blew
away, and no innocent of them all would ever have thought
to drop a fish-line into the well or go down in it and find out
what was really the matter. Old habit of mind is one of the
toughest things to get away from in the world. It transmits
itself like physical form and feature; and for a man, in those
days, to have had an idea that his ancestors hadn’t had,
would have brought him under suspicion of being
illegitimate. I said to the monk:

“It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry well, but we

will try, if my brother Merlin fails. Brother Merlin is a very
passable artist, but only in the parlor-magic line, and he may
not succeed; in fact, is not likely to succeed. But that should
be nothing to his discredit; the man that can do THIS kind of
miracle knows enough to keep hotel.”

“Hotel? I mind not to have heard—”

“Of hotel? It’s what you call hostel. The man that can do this
miracle can keep hostel. I can do this miracle; I shall do this
miracle; yet I do not try to conceal from you that it is a
miracle to tax the occult powers to the last strain.”

“None knoweth that truth better than the brotherhood,

indeed; for it is of record that aforetime it was parlous
difficult and took a year. Natheless, God send you good
success, and to that end will we pray.”

As a matter of business it was a good idea to get the notion

around that the thing was difficult. Many a small thing has
been made large by the right kind of advertising. That monk
was filled up with the difficulty of this enterprise; he would
fill up the others. In two days the solicitude would be
booming.

On my way home at noon, I met Sandy. She had been

sampling the hermits. I said:

“I would like to do that myself. This is Wednesday. Is there a

matinee?”

“A which, please you, sir?”

“Matinee. Do they keep open afternoons?”

“Who?”

“The hermits, of course.”

“Keep open?”

“Yes, keep open. Isn’t that plain enough? Do they knock off
at noon?”

“Knock off?”

“Knock off?—yes, knock off. What is the matter with knock

off? I never saw such a dunderhead; can’t you understand
anything at all? In plain terms, do they shut up shop, draw
the game, bank the fires—”

“Shut up shop, draw—”

“There, never mind, let it go; you make me tired. You can’t
seem to understand the simplest thing.”

I would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me dole and

sorrow that I fail, albeit sith I am but a simple damsel and
taught of none, being from the cradle unbaptized in those
deep waters of learning that do anoint with a sovereignty
him that partaketh of that most noble sacrament, investing
him with reverend state to the mental eye of the humble
mortal who, by bar and lack of that great consecration seeth
in his own unlearned estate but a symbol of that other sort
of lack and loss which men do publish to the pitying eye with
sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of grief do lie
bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when such shall in the
darkness of his mind encounter these golden phrases of high
mystery, these shut-up-shops, and draw-the-game, and
bank-the-fires, it is but by the grace of God that he burst not
for envy of the mind that can beget, and tongue that can
deliver so great and mellow-sounding miracles of speech, and
if there do ensue confusion in that humbler mind, and failure
to divine the meanings of these wonders, then if so be this
miscomprehension is not vain but sooth and true, wit ye well
it is the very substance of worshipful dear homage and may
not lightly be misprized, nor had been, an ye had noted this
complexion of mood and mind and understood that that I
would I could not, and that I could not I might not, nor yet
nor might nor could, nor might-not nor could-not, might be
by advantage turned to the desired would, and so I pray you
mercy of my fault, and that ye will of your kindness and your
charity forgive it, good my master and most dear lord.”

I couldn’t make it all out—that is, the details—but I got the

general idea; and enough of it, too, to be ashamed. It was
not fair to spring those nineteenth century technicalities
upon the untutored infant of the sixth and then rail at her
because she couldn’t get their drift; and when she was
making the honest best drive at it she could, too, and no
fault of hers that she couldn’t fetch the home plate; and so I
apologized. Then we meandered pleasantly away toward the
hermit holes in sociable converse together, and better friends
than ever.
I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and shuddery
reverence for this girl; nowadays whenever she pulled out
from the station and got her train fairly started on one of
those horizonless transcontinental sentences of hers, it was
borne in upon me that I was standing in the awful presence
of the Mother of the German Language. I was so impressed
with this, that sometimes when she began to empty one of
these sentences on me I unconsciously took the very attitude
of reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words had been
water, I had been drowned, sure. She had exactly the
German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered,
whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the
history of a war, she would get it into a single sentence or
die. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence,
that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on
the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

We drifted from hermit to hermit all the afternoon. It was a

most strange menagerie. The chief emulation among them
seemed to be, to see which could manage to be the
uncleanest and most prosperous with vermin. Their manner
and attitudes were the last expression of complacent self-
righteousness. It was one anchorite’s pride to lie naked in
the mud and let the insects bite him and blister him
unmolested; it was another’s to lean against a rock, all day
long, conspicuous to the admiration of the throng of pilgrims
and pray; it was another’s to go naked and crawl around on
all fours; it was another’s to drag about with him, year in and
year out, eighty pounds of iron; it was another’s to never lie
down when he slept, but to stand among the thorn-bushes
and snore when there were pilgrims around to look; a
woman, who had the white hair of age, and no other apparel,
was black from crown to heel with forty-seven years of holy
abstinence from water. Groups of gazing pilgrims stood
around all and every of these strange objects, lost in
reverent wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which
these pious austerities had won for them from an exacting
heaven.

By and by we went to see one of the supremely great ones.

He was a mighty celebrity; his fame had penetrated all
Christendom; the noble and the renowned journeyed from
the remotest lands on the globe to pay him reverence. His
stand was in the center of the widest part of the valley; and
it took all that space to hold his crowds.

His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad platform
on the top of it. He was now doing what he had been doing
every day for twenty years up there—bowing his body
ceaselessly and rapidly almost to his feet. It was his way of
praying. I timed him with a stop watch, and he made 1,244
revolutions in 24 minutes and 46 seconds. It seemed a pity
to have all this power going to waste. It was one of the most
useful motions in mechanics, the pedal movement; so I made
a note in my memorandum book, purposing some day to
apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a sewing
machine with it. I afterward carried out that scheme, and got
five years’ good service out of him; in which time he turned
out upward of eighteen thousand first-rate tow-linen shirts,
which was ten a day. I worked him Sundays and all; he was
going, Sundays, the same as week days, and it was no use to
waste the power. These shirts cost me nothing but just the
mere trifle for the materials—I furnished those myself, it
would not have been right to make him do that—and they
sold like smoke to pilgrims at a dollar and a half apiece,
which was the price of fifty cows or a blooded race horse in
Arthurdom. They were regarded as a perfect protection
against sin, and advertised as such by my knights
everywhere, with the paint-pot and stencil-plate; insomuch
that there was not a cliff or a bowlder or a dead wall in
England but you could read on it at a mile distance:

“Buy the only genuine St. Stylite; patronized by the Nobility.

Patent applied for.”

There was more money in the business than one knew what
to do with. As it extended, I brought out a line of goods
suitable for kings, and a nobby thing for duchesses and that
sort, with ruffles down the fore hatch and the running-gear
clewed up with a featherstitch to leeward and then hauled aft
with a back-stay and triced up with a half-turn in the
standing rigging forward of the weather-gaskets. Yes, it was
a daisy.

But about that time I noticed that the motive power had
taken to standing on one leg, and I found that there was
something the matter with the other one; so I stocked the
business and unloaded, taking Sir Bors de Ganis into camp
financially along with certain of his friends; for the works
stopped within a year, and the good saint got him to his rest.
But he had earned it. I can say that for him.

When I saw him that first time—however, his personal

condition will not quite bear description here. You can read it
in the Lives of the Saints. [All the details concerning the
hermits, in this chapter, are from Lecky—but greatly
modified. This book not being a history but only a tale, the
majority of the historian’s frank details were too strong for
reproduction in it. - Editor]
Chapter XXIII. Restoration of the
Fountain
SATURDAY noon I went to the well and looked on a while.
Merlin was still burning smoke-powders, and pawing the air,
and muttering gibberish as hard as ever, but looking pretty
down-hearted, for of course he had not started even a
perspiration in that well yet. Finally I said:

“How does the thing promise by this time, partner?”

“Behold, I am even now busied with trial of the powerfulest

enchantment known to the princes of the occult arts in the
lands of the East; an it fail me, naught can avail. Peace, until
I finish.”

He raised a smoke this time that darkened all the region, and
must have made matters uncomfortable for the hermits, for
the wind was their way, and it rolled down over their dens in
a dense and billowy fog. He poured out volumes of speech to
match, and contorted his body and sawed the air with his
hands in a most extraordinary way. At the end of twenty
minutes he dropped down panting, and about exhausted.
Now arrived the abbot and several hundred monks and nuns,
and behind them a multitude of pilgrims and a couple of
acres of foundlings, all drawn by the prodigious smoke, and
all in a grand state of excitement. The abbot inquired
anxiously for results. Merlin said:

“If any labor of mortal might break the spell that binds these
waters, this which I have but just essayed had done it. It has
failed; whereby I do now know that that which I had feared
is a truth established; the sign of this failure is, that the
most potent spirit known to the magicians of the East, and
whose name none may utter and live, has laid his spell upon
this well. The mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can
penetrate the secret of that spell, and without that secret
none can break it. The water will flow no more forever, good
Father. I have done what man could. Suffer me to go.”

Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of a

consternation. He turned to me with the signs of it in his
face, and said:

“Ye have heard him. Is it true?”

“Part of it is.”

“Not all, then, not all! What part is true?”

“That that spirit with the Russian name has put his spell
upon the well.”

“God’s wownds, then are we ruined!”

“Possibly.”

“But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?”

“That is it.”

“Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none can break

the spell—”

“Yes, when he says that, he says what isn’t necessarily true.

There are conditions under which an effort to break it may
have some chance—that is, some small, some trifling chance
—of success.”
“The conditions—”

“Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I want the well
and the surroundings for the space of half a mile, entirely to
myself from sunset to-day until I remove the ban—and
nobody allowed to cross the ground but by my authority.”

“Are these all?”

“Yes.”

“And you have no fear to try?”

“Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one may also
succeed. One can try, and I am ready to chance it. I have my
conditions?”

“These and all others ye may name. I will issue

commandment to that effect.”

“Wait,” said Merlin, with an evil smile. “Ye wit that he that
would break this spell must know that spirit’s name?”

“Yes, I know his name.”

“And wit you also that to know it skills not of itself, but ye
must likewise pronounce it? Ha-ha! Knew ye that?”

“Yes, I knew that, too.”

“You had that knowledge! Art a fool? Are ye minded to utter

that name and die?”

“Utter it? Why certainly. I would utter it if it was Welsh.”

“Ye are even a dead man, then; and I go to tell Arthur.”

“That’s all right. Take your gripsack and get along. The thing
for YOU to do is to go home and work the weather, John W.
Merlin.”

It was a home shot, and it made him wince; for he was the
worst weather-failure in the kingdom. When ever he ordered
up the danger-signals along the coast there was a week’s
dead calm, sure, and every time he prophesied fair weather
it rained brickbats. But I kept him in the weather bureau
right along, to undermine his reputation. However, that shot
raised his bile, and instead of starting home to report my
death, he said he would remain and enjoy it.

My two experts arrived in the evening, and pretty well

fagged, for they had traveled double tides. They had pack-
mules along, and had brought everything I needed—tools,
pump, lead pipe, Greek fire, sheaves of big rockets, roman
candles, colored fire sprays, electric apparatus, and a lot of
sundries—everything necessary for the stateliest kind of a
miracle. They got their supper and a nap, and about midnight
we sallied out through a solitude so wholly vacant and
complete that it quite overpassed the required conditions. We
took possession of the well and its surroundings. My boys
were experts in all sorts of things, from the stoning up of a
well to the constructing of a mathematical instrument. An
hour before sunrise we had that leak mended in ship-shape
fashion, and the water began to rise. Then we stowed our
fire works in the chapel, locked up the place, and went home
to bed.

Before the noon mass was over, we were at the well again;
for there was a deal to do yet, and I was deter mined to
spring the miracle before midnight, for business reasons: for
whereas a miracle worked for the Church on a week-day is
worth a good deal, it is worth six times as much if you get it
in on a Sunday. In nine hours the water had risen to its
customary level—that is to say, it was within twenty-three
feet of the top. We put in a little iron pump, one of the first
turned out by my works near the capital; we bored into a
stone reservoir which stood against the outer wall of the
well-chamber and inserted a section of lead pipe that was
long enough to reach to the door of the chapel and project
beyond the threshold, where the gushing water would be
visible to the two hundred and fifty acres of people I was
intending should be present on the flat plain in front of this
little holy hillock at the proper time.

We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead and hoisted

this hogshead to the flat roof of the chapel, where we
clamped it down fast, poured in gunpowder till it lay loosely
an inch deep on the bottom, then we stood up rockets in the
hogshead as thick as they could loosely stand, all the
different breeds of rockets there are; and they made a portly
and imposing sheaf, I can tell you. We grounded the wire of a
pocket electrical battery in that powder, we placed a whole
magazine of Greek fire on each corner of the roof—blue on
one corner, green on another, red on another, and purple on
the last—and grounded a wire in each.

About two hundred yards off, in the flat, we built a pen of

scantlings, about four feet high, and laid planks on it, and so
made a platform. We covered it with swell tapestries
borrowed for the occasion, and topped it off with the abbot’s
own throne. When you are going to do a miracle for an
ignorant race, you want to get in every detail that will count;
you want to make all the properties impressive to the public
eye; you want to make matters comfortable for your head
guest; then you can turn yourself loose and play your effects
for all they are worth. I know the value of these things, for I
know human nature. You can’t throw too much style into a
miracle. It costs trouble, and work, and sometimes money;
but it pays in the end. Well, we brought the wires to the
ground at the chapel, and then brought them under the
ground to the platform, and hid the batteries there. We put a
rope fence a hundred feet square around the platform to
keep off the common multitude, and that finished the work.
My idea was, doors open at 10:30, performance to begin at
11:25 sharp. I wished I could charge admission, but of
course that wouldn’t answer. I instructed my boys to be in
the chapel as early as 10, before anybody was around, and
be ready to man the pumps at the proper time, and make the
fur fly. Then we went home to supper.

The news of the disaster to the well had traveled far by this
time; and now for two or three days a steady avalanche of
people had been pouring into the valley. The lower end of the
valley was become one huge camp; we should have a good
house, no question about that. Criers went the rounds early
in the evening and announced the coming attempt, which put
every pulse up to fever heat. They gave notice that the abbot
and his official suite would move in state and occupy the
platform at 10:30, up to which time all the region which was
under my ban must be clear; the bells would then cease from
tolling, and this sign should be permission to the multitudes
to close in and take their places.

I was at the platform and all ready to do the honors when

the abbot’s solemn procession hove in sight—which it did not
do till it was nearly to the rope fence, because it was a
starless black night and no torches permitted. With it came
Merlin, and took a front seat on the platform; he was as good
as his word for once. One could not see the multitudes
banked together beyond the ban, but they were there, just
the same. The moment the bells stopped, those banked
masses broke and poured over the line like a vast black
wave, and for as much as a half hour it continued to flow,
and then it solidified itself, and you could have walked upon
a pavement of human heads to—well, miles.

We had a solemn stage-wait, now, for about twenty minutes

—a thing I had counted on for effect; it is always good to let
your audience have a chance to work up its expectancy. At
length, out of the silence a noble Latin chant—men’s voices—
broke and swelled up and rolled away into the night, a
majestic tide of melody. I had put that up, too, and it was
one of the best effects I ever invented. When it was finished
I stood up on the platform and extended my hands abroad,
for two minutes, with my face uplifted—that always produces
a dead hush—and then slowly pronounced this ghastly word
with a kind of awfulness which caused hundreds to tremble,
and many women to faint:

“Constantinopolitanischerdudelsackspfeifenmachersgesellschafft!”

Just as I was moaning out the closing hunks of that word, I

touched off one of my electric connections and all that murky
world of people stood revealed in a hideous blue glare! It was
immense—that effect! Lots of people shrieked, women curled
up and quit in every direction, foundlings collapsed by
platoons. The abbot and the monks crossed themselves
nimbly and their lips fluttered with agitated prayers. Merlin
held his grip, but he was astonished clear down to his corns;
he had never seen anything to begin with that, before. Now
was the time to pile in the effects. I lifted my hands and
groaned out this word—as it were in agony:

“Nihilistendynamittheaterkaestchenssprengungsattentaetsversuchungen
—and turned on the red fire! You should have heard that
Atlantic of people moan and howl when that crimson hell
joined the blue! After sixty seconds I shouted:

“Transvaaltruppentropentransporttrampelthiertreibertrauungsthraenent

—and lit up the green fire! After waiting only forty seconds
this time, I spread my arms abroad and thundered out the
devastating syllables of this word of words:

“Mekkamuselmannenmassenmenchenmoerdermohrenmuttermarmormo

—and whirled on the purple glare! There they were, all going
at once, red, blue, green, purple!—four furious volcanoes
pouring vast clouds of radiant smoke aloft, and spreading a
blinding rainbowed noonday to the furthest confines of that
valley. In the distance one could see that fellow on the pillar
standing rigid against the background of sky, his seesaw
stopped for the first time in twenty years. I knew the boys
were at the pump now and ready. So I said to the abbot:

“The time is come, Father. I am about to pronounce the dread

name and command the spell to dissolve. You want to brace
up, and take hold of something.” Then I shouted to the
people: “Behold, in another minute the spell will be broken,
or no mortal can break it. If it break, all will know it, for you
will see the sacred water gush from the chapel door!”

I stood a few moments, to let the hearers have a chance to

spread my announcement to those who couldn’t hear, and so
convey it to the furthest ranks, then I made a grand
exhibition of extra posturing and gesturing, and shouted:

“Lo, I command the fell spirit that possesses the holy

fountain to now disgorge into the skies all the infernal fires
that still remain in him, and straightway dissolve his spell
and flee hence to the pit, there to lie bound a thousand
years. By his own dread name I command it—
BGWJJILLIGKKK!”

Then I touched off the hogshead of rockets, and a vast

fountain of dazzling lances of fire vomited itself toward the
zenith with a hissing rush, and burst in mid-sky into a storm
of flashing jewels! One mighty groan of terror started up
from the massed people—then suddenly broke into a wild
hosannah of joy—for there, fair and plain in the uncanny
glare, they saw the freed water leaping forth! The old abbot
could not speak a word, for tears and the chokings in his
throat; without utterance of any sort, he folded me in his
arms and mashed me. It was more eloquent than speech.
And harder to get over, too, in a country where there were
really no doctors that were worth a damaged nickel.

You should have seen those acres of people throw

themselves down in that water and kiss it; kiss it, and pet it,
and fondle it, and talk to it as if it were alive, and welcome it
back with the dear names they gave their darlings, just as if
it had been a friend who was long gone away and lost, and
was come home again. Yes, it was pretty to see, and made
me think more of them than I had done before.

I sent Merlin home on a shutter. He had caved in and gone

down like a landslide when I pronounced that fearful name,
and had never come to since. He never had heard that name
before,—neither had I—but to him it was the right one. Any
jumble would have been the right one. He admitted,
afterward, that that spirit’s own mother could not have
pronounced that name better than I did. He never could
understand how I survived it, and I didn’t tell him. It is only
young magicians that give away a secret like that. Merlin
spent three months working enchantments to try to find out
the deep trick of how to pronounce that name and outlive it.
But he didn’t arrive.

When I started to the chapel, the populace uncovered and

fell back reverently to make a wide way for me, as if I had
been some kind of a superior being—and I was. I was aware
of that. I took along a night shift of monks, and taught them
the mystery of the pump, and set them to work, for it was
plain that a good part of the people out there were going to
sit up with the water all night, consequently it was but right
that they should have all they wanted of it. To those monks
that pump was a good deal of a miracle itself, and they were
full of wonder over it; and of admiration, too, of the
exceeding effectiveness of its performance.

It was a great night, an immense night. There was reputation

in it. I could hardly get to sleep for glorying over it.
Chapter XXIV. A Rival Magician
MY influence in the Valley of Holiness was something
prodigious now. It seemed worthwhile to try to turn it to
some valuable account. The thought came to me the next
morning, and was suggested by my seeing one of my knights
who was in the soap line come riding in. According to history,
the monks of this place two centuries before had been
worldly minded enough to want to wash. It might be that
there was a leaven of this unrighteousness still remaining.
So I sounded a Brother:

“Wouldn’t you like a bath?”

He shuddered at the thought—the thought of the peril of it to

the well—but he said with feeling:

“One needs not to ask that of a poor body who has not
known that blessed refreshment sith that he was a boy.
Would God I might wash me! but it may not be, fair sir, tempt
me not; it is forbidden.”

And then he sighed in such a sorrowful way that I was

resolved he should have at least one layer of his real estate
removed, if it sized up my whole influence and bankrupted
the pile. So I went to the abbot and asked for a permit for
this Brother. He blenched at the idea—I don’t mean that you
could see him blench, for of course you couldn’t see it
without you scraped him, and I didn’t care enough about it to
scrape him, but I knew the blench was there, just the same,
and within a book-cover’s thickness of the surface, too—
blenched, and trembled. He said:

“Ah, son, ask aught else thou wilt, and it is thine, and freely
granted out of a grateful heart—but this, oh, this! Would you
drive away the blessed water again?”

“No, Father, I will not drive it away. I have mysterious

knowledge which teaches me that there was an error that
other time when it was thought the institution of the bath
banished the fountain.” A large interest began to show up in
the old man’s face. “My knowledge informs me that the bath
was innocent of that misfortune, which was caused by quite
another sort of sin.”

“These are brave words—but—but right welcome, if they be

true.”

“They are true, indeed. Let me build the bath again, Father.
Let me build it again, and the fountain shall flow forever.”

“You promise this?—you promise it? Say the word—say you

promise it!”

“I do promise it.”

“Then will I have the first bath myself! Go—get ye to your

work. Tarry not, tarry not, but go.”

I and my boys were at work, straight off. The ruins of the old
bath were there yet in the basement of the monastery, not a
stone missing. They had been left just so, all these lifetimes,
and avoided with a pious fear, as things accursed. In two
days we had it all done and the water in—a spacious pool of
clear pure water that a body could swim in. It was running
water, too. It came in, and went out, through the ancient
pipes. The old abbot kept his word, and was the first to try it.
He went down black and shaky, leaving the whole black
community above troubled and worried and full of bodings;
but he came back white and joyful, and the game was made!
another triumph scored.

It was a good campaign that we made in that Valley of

Holiness, and I was very well satisfied, and ready to move on
now, but I struck a disappointment. I caught a heavy cold,
and it started up an old lurking rheumatism of mine. Of
course the rheumatism hunted up my weakest place and
located itself there. This was the place where the abbot put
his arms about me and mashed me, what time he was moved
to testify his gratitude to me with an embrace.

When at last I got out, I was a shadow. But every body was
full of attentions and kindnesses, and these brought cheer
back into my life, and were the right medicine to help a
convalescent swiftly up toward health and strength again; so
I gained fast.

Sandy was worn out with nursing; so I made up my mind to

turn out and go a cruise alone, leaving her at the nunnery to
rest up. My idea was to disguise myself as a freeman of
peasant degree and wander through the country a week or
two on foot. This would give me a chance to eat and lodge
with the lowliest and poorest class of free citizens on equal
terms. There was no other way to inform myself perfectly of
their everyday life and the operation of the laws upon it. If I
went among them as a gentleman, there would be restraints
and conventionalities which would shut me out from their
private joys and troubles, and I should get no further than
the outside shell.

One morning I was out on a long walk to get up muscle for

my trip, and had climbed the ridge which bordered the
northern extremity of the valley, when I came upon an
artificial opening in the face of a low precipice, and
recognized it by its location as a hermitage which had often
been pointed out to me from a distance as the den of a
hermit of high renown for dirt and austerity. I knew he had
lately been offered a situation in the Great Sahara, where
lions and sandflies made the hermit-life peculiarly attractive
and difficult, and had gone to Africa to take possession, so I
thought I would look in and see how the atmosphere of this
den agreed with its reputation.

My surprise was great: the place was newly swept and

scoured. Then there was another surprise. Back in the gloom
of the cavern I heard the clink of a little bell, and then this
exclamation:

“Hello Central! Is this you, Camelot?—Behold, thou mayst

glad thy heart an thou hast faith to believe the wonderful
when that it cometh in unexpected guise and maketh itself
manifest in impossible places—here standeth in the flesh his
mightiness The Boss, and with thine own ears shall ye hear
him speak!”

Now what a radical reversal of things this was; what a

jumbling together of extravagant incongruities; what a
fantastic conjunction of opposites and irreconcilables—the
home of the bogus miracle become the home of a real one,
the den of a mediaeval hermit turned into a telephone office!

The telephone clerk stepped into the light, and I recognized

one of my young fellows. I said:

“How long has this office been established here, Ulfius?”

“But since midnight, fair Sir Boss, an it please you. We saw

many lights in the valley, and so judged it well to make a
station, for that where so many lights be needs must they
indicate a town of goodly size.”

“Quite right. It isn’t a town in the customary sense, but it’s a

good stand, anyway. Do you know where you are?”

“Of that I have had no time to make inquiry; for whenas my

comradeship moved hence upon their labors, leaving me in
charge, I got me to needed rest, purposing to inquire when I
waked, and report the place’s name to Camelot for record.”

“Well, this is the Valley of Holiness.”

It didn’t take; I mean, he didn’t start at the name, as I had

supposed he would. He merely said:

“I will so report it.”

“Why, the surrounding regions are filled with the noise of

late wonders that have happened here! You didn’t hear of
them?”

“Ah, ye will remember we move by night, and avoid speech

with all. We learn naught but that we get by the telephone
from Camelot.”

“Why they know all about this thing. Haven’t they told you
anything about the great miracle of the restoration of a holy
fountain?”

“Oh, that? Indeed yes. But the name of this valley doth
woundily differ from the name of that one; indeed to differ
wider were not pos—”

“What was that name, then?”

“The Valley of Hellishness.”

“That explains it. Confound a telephone, anyway. It is the
very demon for conveying similarities of sound that are
miracles of divergence from similarity of sense. But no
matter, you know the name of the place now. Call up
Camelot.”

He did it, and had Clarence sent for. It was good to hear my
boy’s voice again. It was like being home. After some
affectionate interchanges, and some account of my late
illness, I said:

“What is new?”

“The king and queen and many of the court do start even in
this hour, to go to your valley to pay pious homage to the
waters ye have restored, and cleanse themselves of sin, and
see the place where the infernal spirit spouted true hell-
flames to the clouds—an ye listen sharply ye may hear me
wink and hear me likewise smile a smile, sith ’twas I that
made selection of those flames from out our stock and sent
them by your order.”

“Does the king know the way to this place?”

“The king?—no, nor to any other in his realms, mayhap; but

the lads that holp you with your miracle will be his guide and
lead the way, and appoint the places for rests at noons and
sleeps at night.”

“This will bring them here—when?”

“Mid-afternoon, or later, the third day.”

“Anything else in the way of news?”

“The king hath begun the raising of the standing army ye

suggested to him; one regiment is complete and officered.”

“The mischief! I wanted a main hand in that myself. There is

only one body of men in the kingdom that are fitted to officer
a regular army.”

“Yes—and now ye will marvel to know there’s not so much as

one West Pointer in that regiment.”

“What are you talking about? Are you in earnest?”

“It is truly as I have said.”

“Why, this makes me uneasy. Who were chosen, and what

was the method? Competitive examination?”

“Indeed, I know naught of the method. I but know this—

these officers be all of noble family, and are born—what is it
you call it?—chuckleheads.”

“There’s something wrong, Clarence. “

“Comfort yourself, then; for two candidates for a lieutenancy

do travel hence with the king—young nobles both—and if you
but wait where you are you will hear them questioned.”

“That is news to the purpose. I will get one West Pointer in,
anyway. Mount a man and send him to that school with a
message; let him kill horses, if necessary, but he must be
there before sunset to-night and say—”

“There is no need. I have laid a ground wire to the school.

Prithee let me connect you with it.”

It sounded good! In this atmosphere of telephones and

lightning communication with distant regions, I was
breathing the breath of life again after long suffocation. I
realized, then, what a creepy, dull, inanimate horror this
land had been to me all these years, and how I had been in
such a stifled condition of mind as to have grown used to it
almost beyond the power to notice it.

I gave my order to the superintendent of the Academy

personally. I also asked him to bring me some paper and a
fountain pen and a box or so of safety matches. I was getting
tired of doing without these conveniences. I could have them
now, as I wasn’t going to wear armor any more at present,
and therefore could get at my pockets.

When I got back to the monastery, I found a thing of interest

going on. The abbot and his monks were assembled in the
great hall, observing with childish wonder and faith the
performances of a new magician, a fresh arrival. His dress
was the extreme of the fantastic; as showy and foolish as the
sort of thing an Indian medicine-man wears. He was mowing,
and mumbling, and gesticulating, and drawing mystical
figures in the air and on the floor,—the regular thing, you
know. He was a celebrity from Asia—so he said, and that was
enough. That sort of evidence was as good as gold, and
passed current everywhere.

How easy and cheap it was to be a great magician on this

fellow’s terms. His specialty was to tell you what any
individual on the face of the globe was doing at the moment;
and what he had done at any time in the past, and what he
would do at any time in the future. He asked if any would
like to know what the Emperor of the East was doing now?
The sparkling eyes and the delighted rubbing of hands made
eloquent answer—this reverend crowd would like to know
what that monarch was at, just as this moment. The fraud
went through some more mummery, and then made grave
announcement:

“The high and mighty Emperor of the East doth at this

moment put money in the palm of a holy begging friar—one,
two, three pieces, and they be all of silver.”

A buzz of admiring exclamations broke out, all around:

“It is marvelous!” “Wonderful!” “What study, what labor, to

have acquired a so amazing power as this!”

Would they like to know what the Supreme Lord of Inde was
doing? Yes. He told them what the Supreme Lord of Inde was
doing. Then he told them what the Sultan of Egypt was at;
also what the King of the Remote Seas was about. And so on
and so on; and with each new marvel the astonishment at
his accuracy rose higher and higher. They thought he must
surely strike an uncertain place some time; but no, he never
had to hesitate, he always knew, and always with unerring
precision. I saw that if this thing went on I should lose my
supremacy, this fellow would capture my following, I should
be left out in the cold. I must put a cog in his wheel, and do
it right away, too. I said:

“If I might ask, I should very greatly like to know what a

certain person is doing.”

“Speak, and freely. I will tell you.”

“It will be difficult—perhaps impossible.”

“My art knoweth not that word. The more difficult it is, the
more certainly will I reveal it to you.”

You see, I was working up the interest. It was getting pretty

high, too; you could see that by the craning necks all
around, and the half-suspended breathing. So now I climaxed
it:

“If you make no mistake—if you tell me truly what I want to

know—I will give you two hundred silver pennies.”

“The fortune is mine! I will tell you what you would know.”

“Then tell me what I am doing with my right hand.”

“Ah-h!” There was a general gasp of surprise. It had not

occurred to anybody in the crowd—that simple trick of
inquiring about somebody who wasn’t ten thousand miles
away. The magician was hit hard; it was an emergency that
had never happened in his experience before, and it corked
him; he didn’t know how to meet it. He looked stunned,
confused; he couldn’t say a word. “Come,” I said, “what are
you waiting for? Is it possible you can answer up, right off,
and tell what anybody on the other side of the earth is doing,
and yet can’t tell what a person is doing who isn’t three
yards from you? Persons behind me know what I am doing
with my right hand—they will indorse you if you tell
correctly.” He was still dumb. “Very well, I’ll tell you why you
don’t speak up and tell; it is because you don’t know. YOU a
magician! Good friends, this tramp is a mere fraud and liar.”

This distressed the monks and terrified them. They were not
used to hearing these awful beings called names, and they
did not know what might be the consequence. There was a
dead silence now; superstitious bodings were in every mind.
The magician began to pull his wits together, and when he
presently smiled an easy, nonchalant smile, it spread a
mighty relief around; for it indicated that his mood was not
destructive. He said:
“It hath struck me speechless, the frivolity of this person’s
speech. Let all know, if perchance there be any who know it
not, that enchanters of my degree deign not to concern
themselves with the doings of any but kings, princes,
emperors, them that be born in the purple and them only.
Had ye asked me what Arthur the great king is doing, it were
another matter, and I had told ye; but the doings of a subject
interest me not.”

“Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you said ‘anybody,’ and

so I supposed ‘anybody’ included—well, anybody; that is,
everybody.”

“It doth—anybody that is of lofty birth; and the better if he

be royal.”

“That, it meseemeth, might well be,” said the abbot, who saw
his opportunity to smooth things and avert disaster, “for it
were not likely that so wonderful a gift as this would be
conferred for the revelation of the concerns of lesser beings
than such as be born near to the summits of greatness. Our
Arthur the king—”

“Would you know of him?” broke in the enchanter.

“Most gladly, yea, and gratefully.”

Everybody was full of awe and interest again right away, the
incorrigible idiots. They watched the incantations
absorbingly, and looked at me with a “There, now, what can
you say to that?” air, when the announcement came:

“The king is weary with the chase, and lieth in his palace
these two hours sleeping a dreamless sleep.”

“God’s benison upon him!” said the abbot, and crossed

himself; “may that sleep be to the refreshment of his body
and his soul.”

“And so it might be, if he were sleeping,” I said, “but the king

is not sleeping, the king rides.”

Here was trouble again—a conflict of authority. Nobody knew

which of us to believe; I still had some reputation left. The
magician’s scorn was stirred, and he said:

“Lo, I have seen many wonderful soothsayers and prophets

and magicians in my life days, but none be fore that could sit
idle and see to the heart of things with never an incantation
to help.”

“You have lived in the woods, and lost much by it. I use
incantations myself, as this good brotherhood are aware—but
only on occasions of moment.”

When it comes to sarcasming, I reckon I know how to keep

my end up. That jab made this fellow squirm. The abbot
inquired after the queen and the court, and got this
information:

“They be all on sleep, being overcome by fatigue, like as to

the king.”

I said:

“That is merely another lie. Half of them are about their

amusements, the queen and the other half are not sleeping,
they ride. Now perhaps you can spread yourself a little, and
tell us where the king and queen and all that are this
moment riding with them are going?”

“They sleep now, as I said; but on the morrow they will ride,
for they go a journey toward the sea.”

“And where will they be the day after to-morrow at vespers?”

“Far to the north of Camelot, and half their journey will be

done.”

“That is another lie, by the space of a hundred and fifty

miles. Their journey will not be merely half done, it will be
all done, and they will be HERE, in this valley.”

THAT was a noble shot! It set the abbot and the monks in a
whirl of excitement, and it rocked the en chanter to his base.
I followed the thing right up:

“If the king does not arrive, I will have myself ridden on a
rail: if he does I will ride you on a rail instead.”

Next day I went up to the telephone office and found that the
king had passed through two towns that were on the line. I
spotted his progress on the succeeding day in the same way.
I kept these matters to myself. The third day’s reports
showed that if he kept up his gait he would arrive by four in
the afternoon. There was still no sign anywhere of interest in
his coming; there seemed to be no preparations making to
receive him in state; a strange thing, truly. Only one thing
could explain this: that other magician had been cut ting
under me, sure. This was true. I asked a friend of mine, a
monk, about it, and he said, yes, the magician had tried
some further enchantments and found out that the court had
concluded to make no journey at all, but stay at home. Think
of that! Observe how much a reputation was worth in such a
country. These people had seen me do the very showiest bit
of magic in history, and the only one within their memory
that had a positive value, and yet here they were, ready to
take up with an adventurer who could offer no evidence of
his powers but his mere unproven word.

However, it was not good politics to let the king come without
any fuss and feathers at all, so I went down and drummed up
a procession of pilgrims and smoked out a batch of hermits
and started them out at two o’clock to meet him. And that
was the sort of state he arrived in. The abbot was helpless
with rage and humiliation when I brought him out on a
balcony and showed him the head of the state marching in
and never a monk on hand to offer him welcome, and no stir
of life or clang of joy-bell to glad his spirit. He took one look
and then flew to rouse out his forces. The next minute the
bells were dinning furiously, and the various buildings were
vomiting monks and nuns, who went swarming in a rush
toward the coming pro cession; and with them went that
magician—and he was on a rail, too, by the abbot’s order;
and his reputation was in the mud, and mine was in the sky
again. Yes, a man can keep his trademark current in such a
country, but he can’t sit around and do it; he has got to be
on deck and attending to business right along.
Chapter XXV. A Competitive
Examination
WHEN the king traveled for change of air, or made a
progress, or visited a distant noble whom he wished to
bankrupt with the cost of his keep, part of the administration
moved with him. It was a fashion of the time. The
Commission charged with the examination of candidates for
posts in the army came with the king to the Valley, whereas
they could have transacted their business just as well at
home. And although this expedition was strictly a holiday
excursion for the king, he kept some of his business
functions going just the same. He touched for the evil, as
usual; he held court in the gate at sunrise and tried cases,
for he was himself Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.

He shone very well in this latter office. He was a wise and

humane judge, and he clearly did his honest best and fairest,
—according to his lights. That is a large reservation. His
lights—I mean his rearing—often colored his decisions.
Whenever there was a dispute between a noble or gentleman
and a person of lower degree, the king’s leanings and
sympathies were for the former class always, whether he
suspected it or not. It was impossible that this should be
otherwise. The blunting effects of slavery upon the
slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded, the
world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a
band of slaveholders under another name. This has a harsh
sound, and yet should not be offensive to any—even to the
noble himself—unless the fact itself be an offense: for the
statement simply formulates a fact. The repulsive feature of
slavery is the THING, not its name. One needs but to hear an
aristocrat speak of the classes that are below him to
recognize—and in but indifferently modified measure—the
very air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind these
are the slaveholder’s spirit, the slaveholder’s blunted feeling.
They are the result of the same cause in both cases: the
possessor’s old and inbred custom of regarding himself as a
superior being. The king’s judgments wrought frequent
injustices, but it was merely the fault of his training, his
natural and unalterable sympathies. He was as unfitted for a
judgeship as would be the average mother for the position of
milk distributor to starving children in famine-time; her own
children would fare a shade better than the rest.

One very curious case came before the king. A young girl, an
orphan, who had a considerable estate, married a fine young
fellow who had nothing. The girl’s property was within a
seigniory held by the Church. The bishop of the diocese, an
arrogant scion of the great nobility, claimed the girl’s estate
on the ground that she had married privately, and thus had
cheated the Church out of one of its rights as lord of the
seigniory—the one heretofore referred to as le droit du
seigneur. The penalty of refusal or avoidance was
confiscation. The girl’s defense was, that the lordship of the
seigniory was vested in the bishop, and the particular right
here involved was not transferable, but must be exercised by
the lord himself or stand vacated; and that an older law, of
the Church itself, strictly barred the bishop from exercising
it. It was a very odd case, indeed.

It reminded me of something I had read in my youth about

the ingenious way in which the aldermen of London raised
the money that built the Mansion House. A person who had
not taken the Sacrament according to the Anglican rite could
not stand as a candidate for sheriff of London. Thus
Dissenters were ineligible; they could not run if asked, they
could not serve if elected. The aldermen, who without any
question were Yankees in disguise, hit upon this neat device:
they passed a by-law imposing a fine of L400 upon any one
who should refuse to be a candidate for sheriff, and a fine of
L600 upon any person who, after being elected sheriff,
refused to serve. Then they went to work and elected a lot of
Dissenters, one after another, and kept it up until they had
collected L15,000 in fines; and there stands the stately
Mansion House to this day, to keep the blushing citizen in
mind of a long past and lamented day when a band of
Yankees slipped into London and played games of the sort
that has given their race a unique and shady reputation
among all truly good and holy peoples that be in the earth.

The girl’s case seemed strong to me; the bishop’s case was
just as strong. I did not see how the king was going to get
out of this hole. But he got out. I append his decision:

“Truly I find small difficulty here, the matter being even a

child’s affair for simpleness. An the young bride had
conveyed notice, as in duty bound, to her feudal lord and
proper master and protector the bishop, she had suffered no
loss, for the said bishop could have got a dispensation
making him, for temporary conveniency, eligible to the
exercise of his said right, and thus would she have kept all
she had. Whereas, failing in her first duty, she hath by that
failure failed in all; for whoso, clinging to a rope, severeth it
above his hands, must fall; it being no defense to claim that
the rest of the rope is sound, neither any deliverance from
his peril, as he shall find. Pardy, the woman’s case is rotten
at the source. It is the decree of the court that she forfeit to
the said lord bishop all her goods, even to the last farthing
that she doth possess, and be thereto mulcted in the costs.
Next!”
Here was a tragic end to a beautiful honeymoon not yet
three months old. Poor young creatures! They had lived
these three months lapped to the lips in worldly comforts.
These clothes and trinkets they were wearing were as fine
and dainty as the shrewdest stretch of the sumptuary laws
allowed to people of their degree; and in these pretty
clothes, she crying on his shoulder, and he trying to comfort
her with hopeful words set to the music of despair, they went
from the judgment seat out into the world homeless, bedless,
breadless; why, the very beggars by the roadsides were not
so poor as they.

Well, the king was out of the hole; and on terms satisfactory
to the Church and the rest of the aristoracy, no doubt. Men
write many fine and plausible arguments in support of
monarchy, but the fact re mains that where every man in a
State has a vote, brutal laws are impossible. Arthur’s people
were of course poor material for a republic, because they had
been debased so long by monarchy; and yet even they would
have been intelligent enough to make short work of that law
which the king had just been administering if it had been
submitted to their full and free vote. There is a phrase which
has grown so common in the world’s mouth that it has come
to seem to have sense and meaning—the sense and meaning
implied when it is used; that is the phrase which refers to
this or that or the other nation as possibly being “capable of
self-government”; and the implied sense of it is, that there
has been a nation somewhere, some time or other which
wasn’t capable of it—wasn’t as able to govern itself as some
self-appointed specialists were or would be to govern it. The
master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in
affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the
mass of the nation only—not from its privileged classes; and
so, no matter what the nation’s intellectual grade was;
whether high or low, the bulk of its ability was in the long
ranks of its nameless and its poor, and so it never saw the
day that it had not the material in abundance whereby to
govern itself. Which is to assert an always self-proven fact:
that even the best governed and most free and most
enlightened monarchy is still behind the best condition
attainable by its people; and that the same is true of kindred
governments of lower grades, all the way down to the lowest.

King Arthur had hurried up the army business altogether

beyond my calculations. I had not supposed he would move
in the matter while I was away; and so I had not mapped out
a scheme for determining the merits of officers; I had only
remarked that it would be wise to submit every candidate to
a sharp and searching examination; and privately I meant to
put together a list of military qualifications that no body
could answer to but my West Pointers. That ought to have
been attended to before I left; for the king was so taken with
the idea of a standing army that he couldn’t wait but must
get about it at once, and get up as good a scheme of
examination as he could invent out of his own head.

I was impatient to see what this was; and to show, too, how
much more admirable was the one which I should display to
the Examining Board. I intimated this, gently, to the king,
and it fired his curiosity When the Board was assembled, I
followed him in; and behind us came the candidates. One of
these candidates was a bright young West Pointer of mine,
and with him were a couple of my West Point professors.

When I saw the Board, I did not know whether to cry or to

laugh. The head of it was the officer known to later centuries
as Norroy King-at-Arms! The two other members were chiefs
of bureaus in his department; and all three were priests, of
course; all officials who had to know how to read and write
were priests.

My candidate was called first, out of courtesy to me, and the

head of the Board opened on him with official solemnity:

“Name?”

“Mal-ease.”

“Son of?”

“Webster.”

“Webster—Webster. H’m—I—my memory faileth to recall the

name. Condition?”

“Weaver.”

“Weaver!—God keep us!”

The king was staggered, from his summit to his foundations;

one clerk fainted, and the others came near it. The chairman
pulled himself together, and said indignantly:

“It is sufficient. Get you hence.”

But I appealed to the king. I begged that my candidate might

be examined. The king was willing, but the Board, who were
all well-born folk, implored the king to spare them the
indignity of examining the weaver’s son. I knew they didn’t
know enough to examine him anyway, so I joined my prayers
to theirs and the king turned the duty over to my professors.
I had had a blackboard prepared, and it was put up now, and
the circus began. It was beautiful to hear the lad lay out the
science of war, and wallow in details of battle and siege, of
supply, transportation, mining and countermining, grand
tactics, big strategy and little strategy, signal service,
infantry, cavalry, artillery, and all about siege guns, field
guns, gatling guns, rifled guns, smooth bores, musket
practice, revolver practice—and not a solitary word of it all
could these catfish make head or tail of, you under stand—
and it was handsome to see him chalk off mathematical
nightmares on the blackboard that would stump the angels
themselves, and do it like nothing, too—all about eclipses,
and comets, and solstices, and constellations, and mean
time, and sidereal time, and dinner time, and bedtime, and
every other imaginable thing above the clouds or under them
that you could harry or bullyrag an enemy with and make
him wish he hadn’t come—and when the boy made his
military salute and stood aside at last, I was proud enough to
hug him, and all those other people were so dazed they
looked partly petrified, partly drunk, and wholly caught out
and snowed under. I judged that the cake was ours, and by a
large majority.

Education is a great thing. This was the same youth who had
come to West Point so ignorant that when I asked him, “If a
general officer should have a horse shot under him on the
field of battle, what ought he to do?” answered up naively
and said:

“Get up and brush himself.”

One of the young nobles was called up now. I thought I

would question him a little myself. I said:

“Can your lordship read?”

His face flushed indignantly, and he fired this at me:

“Takest me for a clerk? I trow I am not of a blood that—”

“Answer the question!”

He crowded his wrath down and made out to answer “No.”

“Can you write?”

He wanted to resent this, too, but I said:

“You will confine yourself to the questions, and make no

comments. You are not here to air your blood or your graces,
and nothing of the sort will be permitted. Can you write?”

“No.”

“Do you know the multiplication table?”

“I wit not what ye refer to.”

“How much is 9 times 6?”

“It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason that the

emergency requiring the fathoming of it hath not in my life-
days occurred, and so, not having no need to know this
thing, I abide barren of the knowledge.”

“If A trade a barrel of onions to B, worth 2 pence the bushel,

in exchange for a sheep worth 4 pence and a dog worth a
penny, and C kill the dog before delivery, because bitten by
the same, who mistook him for D, what sum is still due to A
from B, and which party pays for the dog, C or D, and who
gets the money? If A, is the penny sufficient, or may he
claim consequential damages in the form of additional money
to represent the possible profit which might have inured from
the dog, and classifiable as earned increment, that is to say,
usufruct?”
“Verily, in the all-wise and unknowable providence of God,
who moveth in mysterious ways his wonders to perform,
have I never heard the fellow to this question for confusion
of the mind and congestion of the ducts of thought.
Wherefore I beseech you let the dog and the onions and
these people of the strange and godless names work out
their several salvations from their piteous and wonderful
difficulties without help of mine, for indeed their trouble is
sufficient as it is, whereas an I tried to help I should but
damage their cause the more and yet mayhap not live myself
to see the desolation wrought.”

“What do you know of the laws of attraction and

gravitation?”

“If there be such, mayhap his grace the king did promulgate
them whilst that I lay sick about the beginning of the year
and thereby failed to hear his proclamation.”

“What do you know of the science of optics?”

“I know of governors of places, and seneschals of castles, and

sheriffs of counties, and many like small offices and titles of
honor, but him you call the Science of Optics I have not
heard of before; peradventure it is a new dignity.”

“Yes, in this country.”

Try to conceive of this mollusk gravely applying for an official

position, of any kind under the sun! Why, he had all the
earmarks of a typewriter copyist, if you leave out the
disposition to contribute uninvited emendations of your
grammar and punctuation. It was unaccountable that he
didn’t attempt a little help of that sort out of his majestic
supply of incapacity for the job. But that didn’t prove that he
hadn’t material in him for the disposition, it only proved that
he wasn’t a typewriter copyist yet. After nagging him a little
more, I let the professors loose on him and they turned him
inside out, on the line of scientific war, and found him empty,
of course. He knew somewhat about the warfare of the time
—bushwhacking around for ogres, and bull-fights in the
tournament ring, and such things—but otherwise he was
empty and useless. Then we took the other young noble in
hand, and he was the first one’s twin, for ignorance and
incapacity. I delivered them into the hands of the chairman
of the Board with the comfortable consciousness that their
cake was dough. They were examined in the previous order
of precedence.

“Name, so please you?”

“Pertipole, son of Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash.”

“Grandfather?”

“Also Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash.”

“Great-grandfather?”

“The same name and title.”

“Great-great-grandfather?”

“We had none, worshipful sir, the line failing before it had
reached so far back.”

“It mattereth not. It is a good four generations, and fulfilleth

the requirements of the rule.”

“Fulfills what rule?” I asked.

“The rule requiring four generations of nobility or else the
candidate is not eligible.”

“A man not eligible for a lieutenancy in the army unless he

can prove four generations of noble descent?”

“Even so; neither lieutenant nor any other officer may be

commissioned without that qualification.”

“Oh, come, this is an astonishing thing. What good is such a

qualification as that?”

“What good? It is a hardy question, fair sir and Boss, since it

doth go far to impugn the wisdom of even our holy Mother
Church herself.”

“As how?”

“For that she hath established the self-same rule regarding

saints. By her law none may be canonized until he hath lain
dead four generations.”

“I see, I see—it is the same thing. It is wonderful. In the one

case a man lies dead-alive four generations—mummified in
ignorance and sloth—and that qualifies him to command live
people, and take their weal and woe into his impotent hands;
and in the other case, a man lies bedded with death and
worms four generations, and that qualifies him for office in
the celestial camp. Does the king’s grace approve of this
strange law?”

The king said:

“Why, truly I see naught about it that is strange. All places of

honor and of profit do belong, by natural right, to them that
be of noble blood, and so these dignities in the army are
their property and would be so without this or any rule. The
rule is but to mark a limit. Its purpose is to keep out too
recent blood, which would bring into contempt these offices,
and men of lofty lineage would turn their backs and scorn to
take them. I were to blame an I permitted this calamity. YOU
can permit it an you are minded so to do, for you have the
delegated authority, but that the king should do it were a
most strange madness and not comprehensible to any.”

“I yield. Proceed, sir Chief of the Herald’s College. “

The chairman resumed as follows:

“By what illustrious achievement for the honor of the Throne

and State did the founder of your great line lift himself to the
sacred dignity of the British nobility?”

“He built a brewery.”

“Sire, the Board finds this candidate perfect in all the

requirements and qualifications for military command, and
doth hold his case open for decision after due examination of
his competitor.”

The competitor came forward and proved exactly four

generations of nobility himself. So there was a tie in military
qualifications that far.

He stood aside a moment, and Sir Pertipole was questioned

further:

“Of what condition was the wife of the founder of your line?”

“She came of the highest landed gentry, yet she was not
noble; she was gracious and pure and charitable, of a
blameless life and character, insomuch that in these regards
was she peer of the best lady in the land.”

“That will do. Stand down.” He called up the competing

lordling again, and asked: “What was the rank and condition
of the great-grandmother who conferred British nobility upon
your great house?”

“She was a king’s leman and did climb to that splendid

eminence by her own unholpen merit from the sewer where
she was born.”

“Ah, this, indeed, is true nobility, this is the right and perfect
intermixture. The lieutenancy is yours, fair lord. Hold it not
in contempt; it is the humble step which will lead to
grandeurs more worthy of the splendor of an origin like to
thine.”

I was down in the bottomless pit of humiliation. I had

promised myself an easy and zenith-scouring triumph, and
this was the outcome!

I was almost ashamed to look my poor disappointed cadet in

the face. I told him to go home and be patient, this wasn’t
the end.

I had a private audience with the king, and made a

proposition. I said it was quite right to officer that regiment
with nobilities, and he couldn’t have done a wiser thing. It
would also be a good idea to add five hundred officers to it;
in fact, add as many officers as there were nobles and
relatives of nobles in the country, even if there should finally
be five times as many officers as privates in it; and thus
make it the crack regiment, the envied regiment, the King’s
Own regiment, and entitled to fight on its own hook and in
its own way, and go whither it would and come when it
pleased, in time of war, and be utterly swell and independent.
This would make that regiment the heart’s desire of all the
nobility, and they would all be satisfied and happy. Then we
would make up the rest of the standing army out of
commonplace materials, and officer it with nobodies, as was
proper—nobodies selected on a basis of mere efficiency—and
we would make this regiment toe the line, allow it no
aristocratic freedom from restraint, and force it to do all the
work and persistent hammering, to the end that whenever
the King’s Own was tired and wanted to go off for a change
and rummage around amongst ogres and have a good time,
it could go without uneasiness, knowing that matters were in
safe hands behind it, and business going to be continued at
the old stand, same as usual. The king was charmed with the
idea.

When I noticed that, it gave me a valuable notion. I thought

I saw my way out of an old and stubborn difficulty at last.
You see, the royalties of the Pendragon stock were a long-
lived race and very fruitful. Whenever a child was born to
any of these—and it was pretty often—there was wild joy in
the nation’s mouth, and piteous sorrow in the nation’s heart.
The joy was questionable, but the grief was honest. Be cause
the event meant another call for a Royal Grant. Long was the
list of these royalties, and they were a heavy and steadily
increasing burden upon the treasury and a menace to the
crown. Yet Arthur could not believe this latter fact, and he
would not listen to any of my various projects for
substituting something in the place of the royal grants. If I
could have persuaded him to now and then provide a support
for one of these outlying scions from his own pocket, I could
have made a grand to-do over it, and it would have had a
good effect with the nation; but no, he wouldn’t hear of such
a thing. He had something like a religious passion for royal
grant; he seemed to look upon it as a sort of sacred swag,
and one could not irritate him in any way so quickly and so
surely as by an attack upon that venerable institution. If I
ventured to cautiously hint that there was not another
respectable family in England that would humble itself to
hold out the hat—however, that is as far as I ever got; he
always cut me short there, and peremptorily, too.

But I believed I saw my chance at last. I would form this

crack regiment out of officers alone—not a single private.
Half of it should consist of nobles, who should fill all the
places up to Major-General, and serve gratis and pay their
own expenses; and they would be glad to do this when they
should learn that the rest of the regiment would consist
exclusively of princes of the blood. These princes of the blood
should range in rank from Lieutenant-General up to Field
Marshal, and be gorgeously salaried and equipped and fed by
the state. Moreover—and this was the master stroke—it
should be decreed that these princely grandees should be
always addressed by a stunningly gaudy and awe-compelling
title (which I would presently invent), and they and they
only in all England should be so addressed. Finally, all
princes of the blood should have free choice; join that
regiment, get that great title, and renounce the royal grant,
or stay out and receive a grant. Neatest touch of all: unborn
but imminent princes of the blood could be BORN into the
regiment, and start fair, with good wages and a permanent
situation, upon due notice from the parents.

All the boys would join, I was sure of that; so, all existing
grants would be relinquished; that the newly born would
always join was equally certain. Within sixty days that quaint
and bizarre anomaly, the Royal Grant, would cease to be a
living fact, and take its place among the curiosities of the
past.
Chapter XXVI. The First Newspaper
WHEN I told the king I was going out disguised as a petty
freeman to scour the country and familiarize myself with the
humbler life of the people, he was all afire with the novelty
of the thing in a minute, and was bound to take a chance in
the adventure himself—nothing should stop him—he would
drop everything and go along—it was the prettiest idea he
had run across for many a day. He wanted to glide out the
back way and start at once; but I showed him that that
wouldn’t answer. You see, he was billed for the king’s-evil—to
touch for it, I mean—and it wouldn’t be right to disappoint
the house and it wouldn’t make a delay worth considering,
anyway, it was only a one-night stand. And I thought he
ought to tell the queen he was going away. He clouded up at
that and looked sad. I was sorry I had spoken, especially
when he said mournfully:

“Thou forgettest that Launcelot is here; and where Launcelot

is, she noteth not the going forth of the king, nor what day
he returneth.”

Of course, I changed the Subject. Yes, Guenever was

beautiful, it is true, but take her all around she was pretty
slack. I never meddled in these matters, they weren’t my
affair, but I did hate to see the way things were going on,
and I don’t mind saying that much. Many’s the time she had
asked me, “Sir Boss, hast seen Sir Launcelot about?” but if
ever she went fretting around for the king I didn’t happen to
be around at the time.

There was a very good lay-out for the king’s-evil business—

very tidy and creditable. The king sat under a canopy of
state; about him were clustered a large body of the clergy in
full canonicals. Conspicuous, both for location and personal
outfit, stood Marinel, a hermit of the quack-doctor species, to
introduce the sick. All abroad over the spacious floor, and
clear down to the doors, in a thick jumble, lay or sat the
scrofulous, under a strong light. It was as good as a tableau;
in fact, it had all the look of being gotten up for that, though
it wasn’t. There were eight hundred sick people present. The
work was slow; it lacked the interest of novelty for me,
because I had seen the ceremonies before; the thing soon
became tedious, but the proprieties required me to stick it
out. The doctor was there for the reason that in all such
crowds there were many people who only imagined
something was the matter with them, and many who were
consciously sound but wanted the immortal honor of fleshly
contact with a king, and yet others who pretended to illness
in order to get the piece of coin that went with the touch. Up
to this time this coin had been a wee little gold piece worth
about a third of a dollar. When you consider how much that
amount of money would buy, in that age and country, and
how usual it was to be scrofulous, when not dead, you would
understand that the annual king’s-evil appropriation was just
the River and Harbor bill of that government for the grip it
took on the treasury and the chance it afforded for skinning
the surplus. So I had privately concluded to touch the
treasury itself for the king’s-evil. I covered six-sevenths of
the appropriation into the treasury a week before starting
from Camelot on my adventures, and ordered that the other
seventh be inflated into five cent nickels and delivered into
the hands of the head clerk of the King’s Evil Department; a
nickel to take the place of each gold coin, you see, and do its
work for it. It might strain the nickel some, but I judged it
could stand it. As a rule, I do not approve of watering stock,
but I considered it square enough in this case, for it was just
a gift, anyway. Of course, you can water a gift as much as
you want to; and I generally do. The old gold and silver coins
of the country were of ancient and unknown origin, as a rule,
but some of them were Roman; they were ill-shapen, and
seldom rounder than a moon that is a week past the full;
they were hammered, not minted, and they were so worn
with use that the devices upon them were as illegible as
blisters, and looked like them. I judged that a sharp, bright
new nickel, with a first-rate likeness of the king on one side
of it and Guenever on the other, and a blooming pious motto,
would take the tuck out of scrofula as handy as a nobler coin
and please the scrofulous fancy more; and I was right. This
batch was the first it was tried on, and it worked to a charm.
The saving in expense was a notable economy. You will see
that by these figures: We touched a trifle over 700 of the
800 patients; at former rates, this would have cost the
government about $240; at the new rate we pulled through
for about $35, thus saving upward of $200 at one swoop. To
appreciate the full magnitude of this stroke, consider these
other figures: the annual expenses of a national government
amount to the equivalent of a contribution of three days’
average wages of every individual of the population,
counting every individual as if he were a man. If you take a
nation of 60,000,000, where average wages are $2 per day,
three days’ wages taken from each individual will provide
$360,000,000 and pay the government’s expenses. In my
day, in my own country, this money was collected from
imposts, and the citizen imagined that the foreign importer
paid it, and it made him comfortable to think so; whereas, in
fact, it was paid by the American people, and was so equally
and exactly distributed among them that the annual cost to
the 100-millionaire and the annual cost to the sucking child
of the day-laborer was precisely the same—each paid $6.
Nothing could be equaler than that, I reckon. Well, Scotland
and Ireland were tributary to Arthur, and the united
populations of the British Islands amounted to something
less than 1,OOO,OOO. A mechanic’s average wage was 3
cents a day, when he paid his own keep. By this rule the
national government’s expenses were $90,000 a year, or
about $250 a day. Thus, by the substitution of nickels for
gold on a king’s-evil day, I not only injured no one,
dissatisfied no one, but pleased all concerned and saved four-
fifths of that day’s national expense into the bargain—a
saving which would have been the equivalent of $800,000 in
my day in America. In making this substitution I had drawn
upon the wisdom of a very remote source—the wisdom of my
boyhood—for the true statesman does not despise any
wisdom, howsoever lowly may be its origin: in my boyhood I
had always saved my pennies and contributed buttons to the
foreign missionary cause. The buttons would answer the
ignorant savage as well as the coin, the coin would answer
me better than the buttons; all hands were happy and
nobody hurt.

Marinel took the patients as they came. He examined the

candidate; if he couldn’t qualify he was warned off; if he
could he was passed along to the king. A priest pronounced
the words, “They shall lay their hands on the sick, and they
shall recover.” Then the king stroked the ulcers, while the
reading continued; finally, the patient graduated and got his
nickel—the king hanging it around his neck himself—and was
dismissed. Would you think that that would cure? It certainly
did. Any mummery will cure if the patient’s faith is strong in
it. Up by Astolat there was a chapel where the Virgin had
once appeared to a girl who used to herd geese around there
—the girl said so herself—and they built the chapel upon that
spot and hung a picture in it representing the occurrence—a
picture which you would think it dangerous for a sick person
to approach; whereas, on the contrary, thousands of the
lame and the sick came and prayed before it every year and
went away whole and sound; and even the well could look
upon it and live. Of course, when I was told these things I did
not believe them; but when I went there and saw them I had
to succumb. I saw the cures effected myself; and they were
real cures and not questionable. I saw cripples whom I had
seen around Camelot for years on crutches, arrive and pray
before that picture, and put down their crutches and walk off
without a limp. There were piles of crutches there which had
been left by such people as a testimony.

In other places people operated on a patient’s mind, without

saying a word to him, and cured him. In others, experts
assembled patients in a room and prayed over them, and
appealed to their faith, and those patients went away cured.
Wherever you find a king who can’t cure the king’s-evil you
can be sure that the most valuable superstition that supports
his throne—the subject’s belief in the divine appointment of
his sovereign—has passed away. In my youth the monarchs
of England had ceased to touch for the evil, but there was no
occasion for this diffidence: they could have cured it forty-
nine times in fifty.

Well, when the priest had been droning for three hours, and
the good king polishing the evidences, and the sick were still
pressing forward as plenty as ever, I got to feeling intolerably
bored. I was sitting by an open window not far from the
canopy of state. For the five hundredth time a patient stood
forward to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again those
words were being droned out: “they shall lay their hands on
the sick”—when outside there rang clear as a clarion a note
that enchanted my soul and tumbled thirteen worthless
centuries about my ears: “Camelot Weekly Hosannah and
Literary Volcano!—latest irruption—only two cents—all about
the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!” One greater than
kings had arrived—the newsboy. But I was the only person in
all that throng who knew the meaning of this mighty birth,
and what this imperial magician was come into the world to
do.

I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my paper; the

Adam-newsboy of the world went around the corner to get
my change; is around the corner yet. It was delicious to see
a newspaper again, yet I was conscious of a secret shock
when my eye fell upon the first batch of display head-lines. I
had lived in a clammy atmosphere of reverence, respect,
deference, so long that they sent a quivery little cold wave
through me:

HIGH TIMES IN THE VALLEY OF HOLINESS!

——

THE WATER-WORKS CORKED!

——

BRER MERLIN WORKS HIS ARTS, BUT GETS LEFT?

——

But the Boss scores on his first Innings!

——

The Miraculous Well Uncorked amid awful outbursts of

INFERNAL FIRE AND SMOKE ATHUNDER!

——
THE BUZZARD-ROOST ASTONISHED!

——

UNPARALLELED REJOICINGS!

—and so on, and so on. Yes, it was too loud. Once I could
have enjoyed it and seen nothing out of the way about it, but
now its note was discordant. It was good Arkansas
journalism, but this was not Arkansas. Moreover, the next to
the last line was calculated to give offense to the hermits,
and perhaps lose us their advertising. Indeed, there was too
lightsome a tone of flippancy all through the paper. It was
plain I had undergone a considerable change without noticing
it. I found myself unpleasantly affected by pert little
irreverencies which would have seemed but proper and airy
graces of speech at an earlier period of my life. There was an
abundance of the following breed of items, and they
discomforted me:

LOCAL SMOKE AND CINDERS.

Sir Launcelot met up with old King Agrivance of Ireland

unexpectedly last weok over on the moor south of Sir
Balmoral le Merveilleuse’s hog dasture. The widow has been
notified.

Expedition No. 3 will start adout the first of mext month on a

search f8r Sir Sagramour le Desirous. It is in comand of the
renowned Knight of the Red Lawns, assissted by Sir Persant
of Inde, who is compete9t. intelligent, courteous, and in
every way a brick, and furtHer assisted by Sir Palamides the
Saracen, who is no huckleberry hinself. This is no pic-nic,
these boys mean busine&s.
The readers of the Hosannah will regret to learn that the
hadndsome and popular Sir Charolais of Gaul, who during his
four weeks’ stay at the Bull and Halibut, this city, has won
every heart by his polished manners and elegant
cPnversation, will pUll out to-day for home. Give us another
call, Charley!

The bdsiness end of the funeral of the late Sir Dalliance the
duke’s son of Cornwall, killed in an encounter with the Giant
of the Knotted Bludgeon last Tuesday on the borders of the
Plain of Enchantment was in the hands of the ever affable
and efficient Mumble, prince of un3ertakers, then whom
there exists none by whom it were a more satisfying
pleasure to have the last sad offices performed. Give him a
trial.

The cordial thanks of the Hosannah office are due, from

editor down to devil, to the ever courteous and thoughtful
Lord High Stew d of the Palace’s Third Assistant V t for
several sauceTs of ice crEam a quality calculated to make the
ey of the recipients humid with grt ude; and it done it. When
this administration wants to chalk up a desirable name for
early promotion, the Hosannah would like a chance to
sudgest.

The Demoiselle Irene Dewlap, of South Astolat, is visiting her

uncle, the popular host of the Cattlemen’s Boarding Ho&se,
Liver Lane, this city.

Young Barker the bellows-mender is hoMe again, and looks

much improved by his vacation round-up among the outlying
smithies. See his ad.

Of course it was good enough journalism for a beginning; I

knew that quite well, and yet it was somehow disappointing.
The “Court Circular” pleased me better; indeed, its simple
and dignified respectfulness was a distinct refreshment to me
after all those disgraceful familiarities. But even it could
have been improved. Do what one may, there is no getting
an air of variety into a court circular, I acknowledge that.
There is a profound monotonousness about its facts that
baffles and defeats one’s sincerest efforts to make them
sparkle and enthuse. The best way to manage—in fact, the
only sensible way—is to disguise repetitiousness of fact
under variety of form: skin your fact each time and lay on a
new cuticle of words. It deceives the eye; you think it is a
new fact; it gives you the idea that the court is carrying on
like everything; this excites you, and you drain the whole
column, with a good appetite, and perhaps never notice that
it’s a barrel of soup made out of a single bean. Clarence’s
way was good, it was simple, it was dignified, it was direct
and business-like; all I say is, it was not the best way:

COURT CIRCULAR.

On Monday, the king rode in the park.

“ Tuesday, “ “ “
“ Wendesday “ “ “
“ Thursday “ “ “
“ Friday, “ “ “
“ Saturday “ “ “
“ Sunday, “ “ “

However, take the paper by and large, I was vastly pleased

with it. Little crudities of a mechanical sort were observable
here and there, but there were not enough of them to
amount to anything, and it was good enough Arkansas proof-
reading, anyhow, and better than was needed in Arthur’s day
and realm. As a rule, the grammar was leaky and the
construction more or less lame; but I did not much mind
these things. They are common defects of my own, and one
mustn’t criticise other people on grounds where he can’t
stand perpendicular himself.

I was hungry enough for literature to want to take down the

whole paper at this one meal, but I got only a few bites, and
then had to postpone, because the monks around me
besieged me so with eager questions: What is this curious
thing? What is it for? Is it a handkerchief?—saddle blanket?
—part of a shirt? What is it made of? How thin it is, and how
dainty and frail; and how it rattles. Will it wear, do you think,
and won’t the rain injure it? Is it writing that appears on it,
or is it only ornamentation? They suspected it was writing,
because those among them who knew how to read Latin and
had a smattering of Greek, recognized some of the letters,
but they could make nothing out of the result as a whole. I
put my information in the simplest form I could:

“It is a public journal; I will explain what that is, another

time. It is not cloth, it is made of paper; some time I will
explain what paper is. The lines on it are reading matter;
and not written by hand, but printed; by and by I will explain
what printing is. A thousand of these sheets have been
made, all exactly like this, in every minute detail—they can’t
be told apart.” Then they all broke out with exclamations of
surprise and admiration:

“A thousand! Verily a mighty work—a year’s work for many

men.”

“No—merely a day’s work for a man and a boy.”

They crossed themselves, and whiffed out a protective prayer

or two.
“Ah-h—a miracle, a wonder! Dark work of enchantment.”

I let it go at that. Then I read in a low voice, to as many as

could crowd their shaven heads within hearing distance, part
of the account of the miracle of the restoration of the well,
and was accompanied by astonished and reverent
ejaculations all through: “Ah-h-h!” “How true!” “Amazing,
amazing!” “These be the very haps as they happened, in
marvelous exactness!” And might they take this strange
thing in their hands, and feel of it and examine it?—they
would be very careful. Yes. So they took it, handling it as
cautiously and devoutly as if it had been some holy thing
come from some supernatural region; and gently felt of its
texture, caressed its pleasant smooth surface with lingering
touch, and scanned the mysterious characters with
fascinated eyes. These grouped bent heads, these charmed
faces, these speaking eyes—how beautiful to me! For was not
this my darling, and was not all this mute wonder and
interest and homage a most eloquent tribute and unforced
compliment to it? I knew, then, how a mother feels when
women, whether strangers or friends, take her new baby,
and close themselves about it with one eager impulse, and
bend their heads over it in a tranced adoration that makes
all the rest of the universe vanish out of their consciousness
and be as if it were not, for that time. I knew how she feels,
and that there is no other satisfied ambition, whether of
king, conqueror, or poet, that ever reaches half-way to that
serene far summit or yields half so divine a contentment.

During all the rest of the seance my paper traveled from

group to group all up and down and about that huge hall,
and my happy eye was upon it always, and I sat motionless,
steeped in satisfaction, drunk with enjoyment. Yes, this was
heaven; I was tasting it once, if I might never taste it more.
Chapter XXVII. The Yankee and the
King Travel Incognito
ABOUT bedtime I took the king to my private quarters to cut
his hair and help him get the hang of the lowly raiment he
was to wear. The high classes wore their hair banged across
the forehead but hanging to the shoulders the rest of the
way around, whereas the lowest ranks of commoners were
banged fore and aft both; the slaves were bangless, and
allowed their hair free growth. So I inverted a bowl over his
head and cut away all the locks that hung below it. I also
trimmed his whiskers and mustache until they were only
about a half-inch long; and tried to do it inartistically, and
succeeded. It was a villainous disfigurement. When he got
his lubberly sandals on, and his long robe of coarse brown
linen cloth, which hung straight from his neck to his ankle-
bones, he was no longer the comeliest man in his kingdom,
but one of the unhandsomest and most commonplace and
unattractive. We were dressed and barbered alike, and could
pass for small farmers, or farm bailiffs, or shepherds, or
carters; yes, or for village artisans, if we chose, our costume
being in effect universal among the poor, because of its
strength and cheapness. I don’t mean that it was really
cheap to a very poor person, but I do mean that it was the
cheapest material there was for male attire—manufactured
material, you understand.

We slipped away an hour before dawn, and by broad sun-up

had made eight or ten miles, and were in the midst of a
sparsely settled country. I had a pretty heavy knapsack; it
was laden with provisions—pro visions for the king to taper
down on, till he could take to the coarse fare of the country
without damage.
I found a comfortable seat for the king by the roadside, and
then gave him a morsel or two to stay his stomach with.
Then I said I would find some water for him, and strolled
away. Part of my project was to get out of sight and sit down
and rest a little myself. It had always been my custom to
stand when in his presence; even at the council board,
except upon those rare occasions when the sitting was a very
long one, extending over hours; then I had a trifling little
backless thing which was like a reversed culvert and was as
comfortable as the toothache. I didn’t want to break him in
suddenly, but do it by degrees. We should have to sit
together now when in company, or people would notice; but
it would not be good politics for me to be playing equality
with him when there was no necessity for it.

I found the water some three hundred yards away, and had
been resting about twenty minutes, when I heard voices.
That is all right, I thought—peasants going to work; nobody
else likely to be stirring this early. But the next moment
these comers jingled into sight around a turn of the road—
smartly clad people of quality, with luggage-mules and
servants in their train! I was off like a shot, through the
bushes, by the shortest cut. For a while it did seem that
these people would pass the king before I could get to him;
but desperation gives you wings, you know, and I canted my
body forward, inflated my breast, and held my breath and
flew. I arrived. And in plenty good enough time, too.

“Pardon, my king, but it’s no time for ceremony—jump! Jump

to your feet—some quality are coming!”

“Is that a marvel? Let them come.”

“But my liege! You must not be seen sitting. Rise!—and stand

in humble posture while they pass. You are a peasant, you
know.”

“True—I had forgot it, so lost was I in planning of a huge war

with Gaul”—he was up by this time, but a farm could have
got up quicker, if there was any kind of a boom in real estate
—”and right-so a thought came randoming overthwart this
majestic dream the which—”

“A humbler attitude, my lord the king—and quick! Duck your

head!—more!—still more!—droop it!”

He did his honest best, but lord, it was no great things. He

looked as humble as the leaning tower at Pisa. It is the most
you could say of it. Indeed, it was such a thundering poor
success that it raised wondering scowls all along the line, and
a gorgeous flunkey at the tail end of it raised his whip; but I
jumped in time and was under it when it fell; and under
cover of the volley of coarse laughter which followed, I spoke
up sharply and warned the king to take no notice. He
mastered himself for the moment, but it was a sore tax; he
wanted to eat up the procession. I said:

“It would end our adventures at the very start; and we,
being without weapons, could do nothing with that armed
gang. If we are going to succeed in our emprise, we must not
only look the peasant but act the peasant.”

“It is wisdom; none can gainsay it. Let us go on, Sir Boss. I
will take note and learn, and do the best I may.”

He kept his word. He did the best he could, but I’ve seen
better. If you have ever seen an active, heedless,
enterprising child going diligently out of one mischief and
into another all day long, and an anxious mother at its heels
all the while, and just saving it by a hair from drowning itself
or breaking its neck with each new experiment, you’ve seen
the king and me.

If I could have foreseen what the thing was going to be like,

I should have said, No, if anybody wants to make his living
exhibiting a king as a peasant, let him take the layout; I can
do better with a menagerie, and last longer. And yet, during
the first three days I never allowed him to enter a hut or
other dwelling. If he could pass muster anywhere during his
early novitiate it would be in small inns and on the road; so
to these places we confined ourselves. Yes, he certainly did
the best he could, but what of that? He didn’t improve a bit
that I could see.

He was always frightening me, always breaking out with

fresh astonishers, in new and unexpected places. Toward
evening on the second day, what does he do but blandly
fetch out a dirk from inside his robe!

“Great guns, my liege, where did you get that?”

“From a smuggler at the inn, yester eve.”

“What in the world possessed you to buy it?”

“We have escaped divers dangers by wit—thy wit—but I have

bethought me that it were but prudence if I bore a weapon,
too. Thine might fail thee in some pinch.”

“But people of our condition are not allowed to carry arms.

What would a lord say—yes, or any other person of whatever
condition—if he caught an upstart peasant with a dagger on
his person?”

It was a lucky thing for us that nobody came along just then.
I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy
as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way
of killing itself. We walked along, silent and thinking. Finally
the king said:

“When ye know that I meditate a thing inconvenient, or that

hath a peril in it, why do you not warn me to cease from that
project?”

It was a startling question, and a puzzler. I didn’t quite know

how to take hold of it, or what to say, and so, of course, I
ended by saying the natural thing:

“But, sire, how can I know what your thoughts are?”

The king stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at me.

“I believed thou wert greater than Merlin; and truly in magic

thou art. But prophecy is greater than magic. Merlin is a
prophet.”

I saw I had made a blunder. I must get back my lost ground.

After a deep reflection and careful planning, I said:

“Sire, I have been misunderstood. I will explain. There are

two kinds of prophecy. One is the gift to foretell things that
are but a little way off, the other is the gift to foretell things
that are whole ages and centuries away. Which is the
mightier gift, do you think?”

“Oh, the last, most surely!”

“True. Does Merlin possess it?”

“Partly, yes. He foretold mysteries about my birth and future

kingship that were twenty years away.”
“Has he ever gone beyond that?”

“He would not claim more, I think.”

“It is probably his limit. All prophets have their limit. The
limit of some of the great prophets has been a hundred
years.”

“These are few, I ween.”

“There have been two still greater ones, whose limit was four
hundred and six hundred years, and one whose limit
compassed even seven hundred and twenty.”

“Gramercy, it is marvelous!”

“But what are these in comparison with me? They are

nothing.”

“What? Canst thou truly look beyond even so vast a stretch

of time as—”

“Seven hundred years? My liege, as clear as the vision of an

eagle does my prophetic eye penetrate and lay bare the
future of this world for nearly thirteen centuries and a half!”

My land, you should have seen the king’s eyes spread slowly
open, and lift the earth’s entire atmosphere as much as an
inch! That settled Brer Merlin. One never had any occasion
to prove his facts, with these people; all he had to do was to
state them. It never occurred to anybody to doubt the
statement.

“Now, then,” I continued, “I could work both kinds of

prophecy—the long and the short—if I chose to take the
trouble to keep in practice; but I seldom exercise any but the
long kind, because the other is beneath my dignity. It is
properer to Merlin’s sort—stump-tail prophets, as we call
them in the profession. Of course, I whet up now and then
and flirt out a minor prophecy, but not often—hardly ever, in
fact. You will remember that there was great talk, when you
reached the Valley of Holiness, about my having prophesied
your coming and the very hour of your arrival, two or three
days beforehand.”

“Indeed, yes, I mind it now.”

“Well, I could have done it as much as forty times easier, and

piled on a thousand times more detail into the bargain, if it
had been five hundred years away instead of two or three
days.”

“How amazing that it should be so!”

“Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is five

hundred years away easier than he can a thing that’s only
five hundred seconds off.”

“And yet in reason it should clearly be the other way; it

should be five hundred times as easy to foretell the last as
the first, for, indeed, it is so close by that one uninspired
might almost see it. In truth, the law of prophecy doth
contradict the likelihoods, most strangely making the difficult
easy, and the easy difficult.”

It was a wise head. A peasant’s cap was no safe disguise for

it; you could know it for a king’s under a diving-bell, if you
could hear it work its intellect.

I had a new trade now, and plenty of business in it. The king
was as hungry to find out everything that was going to
happen during the next thirteen centuries as if he were
expecting to live in them. From that time out, I prophesied
myself bald-headed trying to supply the demand. I have done
some indiscreet things in my day, but this thing of playing
myself for a prophet was the worst. Still, it had its
ameliorations. A prophet doesn’t have to have any brains.
They are good to have, of course, for the ordinary exigencies
of life, but they are no use in professional work. It is the
restfulest vocation there is. When the spirit of prophecy
comes upon you, you merely cake your intellect and lay it off
in a cool place for a rest, and unship your jaw and leave it
alone; it will work itself: the result is prophecy.

Every day a knight-errant or so came along, and the sight of

them fired the king’s martial spirit every time. He would
have forgotten himself, sure, and said something to them in
a style a suspicious shade or so above his ostensible degree,
and so I always got him well out of the road in time. Then he
would stand and look with all his eyes; and a proud light
would flash from them, and his nostrils would inflate like a
war-horse’s, and I knew he was longing for a brush with
them. But about noon of the third day I had stopped in the
road to take a precaution which had been suggested by the
whip-stroke that had fallen to my share two days before; a
precaution which I had afterward decided to leave untaken, I
was so loath to institute it; but now I had just had a fresh
reminder: while striding heedlessly along, with jaw spread
and intellect at rest, for I was prophesying, I stubbed my toe
and fell sprawling. I was so pale I couldn’t think for a
moment; then I got softly and carefully up and unstrapped
my knapsack. I had that dynamite bomb in it, done up in
wool in a box. It was a good thing to have along; the time
would come when I could do a valuable miracle with it,
maybe, but it was a nervous thing to have about me, and I
didn’t like to ask the king to carry it. Yet I must either throw
it away or think up some safe way to get along with its
society. I got it out and slipped it into my scrip, and just then
here came a couple of knights. The king stood, stately as a
statue, gazing toward them—had forgotten himself again, of
course—and before I could get a word of warning out, it was
time for him to skip, and well that he did it, too. He supposed
they would turn aside. Turn aside to avoid trampling peasant
dirt under foot? When had he ever turned aside himself—or
ever had the chance to do it, if a peasant saw him or any
other noble knight in time to judiciously save him the
trouble? The knights paid no attention to the king at all; it
was his place to look out himself, and if he hadn’t skipped he
would have been placidly ridden down, and laughed at
besides.

The king was in a flaming fury, and launched out his

challenge and epithets with a most royal vigor. The knights
were some little distance by now. They halted, greatly
surprised, and turned in their saddles and looked back, as if
wondering if it might be worth while to bother with such
scum as we. Then they wheeled and started for us. Not a
moment must be lost. I started for THEM. I passed them at a
rattling gait, and as I went by I flung out a hair-lifting soul-
scorching thirteen-jointed insult which made the king’s effort
poor and cheap by comparison. I got it out of the nineteenth
century where they know how. They had such headway that
they were nearly to the king before they could check up;
then, frantic with rage, they stood up their horses on their
hind hoofs and whirled them around, and the next moment
here they came, breast to breast. I was seventy yards off,
then, and scrambling up a great boulder at the roadside.
When they were within thirty yards of me they let their long
lances droop to a level, depressed their mailed heads, and
so, with their horse-hair plumes streaming straight out
behind, most gallant to see, this lightning express came
tearing for me! When they were within fifteen yards, I sent
that bomb with a sure aim, and it struck the ground just
under the horses’ noses.

Yes, it was a neat thing, very neat and pretty to see. It

resembled a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi; and
during the next fifteen minutes we stood under a steady
drizzle of microscopic fragments of knights and hardware and
horse-flesh. I say we, for the king joined the audience, of
course, as soon as he had got his breath again. There was a
hole there which would afford steady work for all the people
in that region for some years to come—in trying to ex plain
it, I mean; as for filling it up, that service would be
comparatively prompt, and would fall to the lot of a select
few—peasants of that seignory; and they wouldn’t get
anything for it, either.

But I explained it to the king myself. I said it was done with a

dynamite bomb, This information did him no damage,
because it left him as intelligent as he was before. However,
it was a noble miracle, in his eyes, and was another settler
for Merlin. I thought it well enough to explain that this was a
miracle of so rare a sort that it couldn’t be done except when
the atmospheric conditions were just right. Otherwise he
would be encoring it every time we had a good subject, and
that would be inconvenient, because I hadn’t any more
bombs along.
Chapter XXVIII. Drilling the King
ON the morning of the fourth day, when it was just sunrise,
and we had been tramping an hour in the chill dawn, I came
to a resolution: the king MUST be drilled; things could not go
on so, he must be taken in hand and deliberately and
conscientiously drilled, or we couldn’t ever venture to enter a
dwelling; the very cats would know this masquerader for a
hum bug and no peasant. So I called a halt and said:

“Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you are all right,

there is no discrepancy; but as between your clothes and
your bearing, you are all wrong, there is a most noticeable
discrepancy. Your soldierly stride, your lordly port—these will
not do. You stand too straight, your looks are too high, too
confident. The cares of a kingdom do not stoop the
shoulders, they do not droop the chin, they do not depress
the high level of the eye-glance, they do not put doubt and
fear in the heart and hang out the signs of them in slouching
body and unsure step. It is the sordid cares of the lowly born
that do these things. You must learn the trick; you must
imitate the trademarks of poverty, misery, oppression, insult,
and the other several and common inhumanities that sap the
manliness out of a man and make him a loyal and proper and
approved subject and a satisfaction to his masters, or the
very infants will know you for better than your disguise, and
we shall go to pieces at the first hut we stop at. Pray try to
walk like this.”

The king took careful note, and then tried an imitation.

“Pretty fair—pretty fair. Chin a little lower, please—there,

very good. Eyes too high; pray don’t look at the horizon, look
at the ground, ten steps in front of you. Ah—that is better,
that is very good. Wait, please; you betray too much vigor,
too much decision; you want more of a shamble. Look at me,
please—this is what I mean......Now you are getting it; that
is the idea—at least, it sort of approaches it......Yes, that is
pretty fair. But! There is a great big something wanting, I
don’t quite know what it is. Please walk thirty yards, so that I
can get a perspective on the thing......Now, then—your
head’s right, speed’s right, shoulders right, eyes right, chin
right, gait, carriage, general style right—everything’s right!
And yet the fact remains, the aggregate’s wrong. The account
don’t balance. Do it again, please......NOW I think I begin to
see what it is. Yes, I’ve struck it. You see, the genuine spirit-
essness is wanting; that’s what’s the trouble. It’s all amateur
—mechanical details all right, almost to a hair; everything
about the delusion perfect, except that it don’t delude.”

“What, then, must one do, to prevail?”

“Let me think......I can’t seem to quite get at it. In fact, there

isn’t anything that can right the matter but practice. This is a
good place for it: roots and stony ground to break up your
stately gait, a region not liable to interruption, only one field
and one hut in sight, and they so far away that nobody could
see us from there. It will be well to move a little off the road
and put in the whole day drilling you, sire.”

After the drill had gone on a little while, I said:

“Now, sire, imagine that we are at the door of the hut

yonder, and the family are before us. Proceed, please—accost
the head of the house.”

The king unconsciously straightened up like a monument,

and said, with frozen austerity:
“Varlet, bring a seat; and serve to me what cheer ye have.”

“Ah, your grace, that is not well done.”

“In what lacketh it?”

“These people do not call each other varlets.”

“Nay, is that true?”

“Yes; only those above them call them so.”

“Then must I try again. I will call him villein.”

“No-no; for he may be a freeman.”

“Ah—so. Then peradventure I should call him goodman.”

“That would answer, your grace, but it would be still better if

you said friend, or brother.”

“Brother!—to dirt like that?”

“Ah, but we are pretending to be dirt like that, too.”

“It is even true. I will say it. Brother, bring a seat, and
thereto what cheer ye have, withal. Now ’tis right.”

“Not quite, not wholly right. You have asked for one, not us—
for one, not both; food for one, a seat for one.”

The king looked puzzled—he wasn’t a very heavy weight,

intellectually. His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an
idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea
at once.

“Would you have a seat also—and sit?”

“If I did not sit, the man would perceive that we were only
pretending to be equals—and playing the deception pretty
poorly, too.”

“It is well and truly said! How wonderful is truth, come it in

whatsoever unexpected form it may! Yes, he must bring out
seats and food for both, and in serving us present not ewer
and napkin with more show of respect to the one than to the
other.”

“And there is even yet a detail that needs correcting. He

must bring nothing outside; we will go in—in among the dirt,
and possibly other repulsive things,—and take the food with
the household, and after the fashion of the house, and all on
equal terms, except the man be of the serf class; and finally,
there will be no ewer and no napkin, whether he be serf or
free. Please walk again, my liege. There—it is better—it is
the best yet; but not perfect. The shoulders have known no
ignobler burden than iron mail, and they will not stoop.”

“Give me, then, the bag. I will learn the spirit that goeth
with burdens that have not honor. It is the spirit that
stoopeth the shoulders, I ween, and not the weight; for
armor is heavy, yet it is a proud burden, and a man standeth
straight in it......Nay, but me no buts, offer me no objections.
I will have the thing. Strap it upon my back.”

He was complete now with that knapsack on, and looked as

little like a king as any man I had ever seen. But it was an
obstinate pair of shoulders; they could not seem to learn the
trick of stooping with any sort of deceptive naturalness. The
drill went on, I prompting and correcting:

“Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up by

relentless creditors; you are out of work—which is horse-
shoeing, let us say—and can get none; and your wife is sick,
your children are crying because they are hungry—”

And so on, and so on. I drilled him as representing in turn all

sorts of people out of luck and suffering dire privations and
misfortunes. But lord, it was only just words, words—they
meant nothing in the world to him, I might just as well have
whistled. Words realize nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless
you have suffered in your own person the thing which the
words try to describe. There are wise people who talk ever so
knowingly and complacently about “the working classes,” and
satisfy themselves that a day’s hard intellectual work is very
much harder than a day’s hard manual toil, and is
righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really
think that, you know, because they know all about the one,
but haven’t tried the other. But I know all about both; and so
far as I am concerned, there isn’t money enough in the
universe to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will
do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near
nothing as you can cipher it down—and I will be satisfied,
too.

Intellectual “work” is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a

dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid
architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer,
advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively
in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with
the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great
orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound
washing over him—why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish
to call it that, but lord, it’s a sarcasm just the same. The law
of work does seem utterly unfair—but there it is, and nothing
can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker
gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And
it’s also the very law of those transparent swindles,
transmissible nobility and kingship.
Chapter XXIX. The Smallpox Hut
WHEN we arrived at that hut at mid-afternoon, we saw no
signs of life about it. The field near by had been denuded of
its crop some time before, and had a skinned look, so
exhaustively had it been harvested and gleaned. Fences,
sheds, everything had a ruined look, and were eloquent of
poverty. No animal was around anywhere, no living thing in
sight. The stillness was awful, it was like the stillness of
death. The cabin was a one-story one, whose thatch was
black with age, and ragged from lack of repair.

The door stood a trifle ajar. We approached it stealthily—on

tiptoe and at half-breath—for that is the way one’s feeling
makes him do, at such a time. The king knocked. We waited.
No answer. Knocked again. No answer. I pushed the door
softly open and looked in. I made out some dim forms, and a
woman started up from the ground and stared at me, as one
does who is wakened from sleep. Presently she found her
voice:

“Have mercy!” she pleaded. “All is taken, nothing is left.”

“I have not come to take anything, poor woman.”

“You are not a priest?”

“No.”

“Nor come not from the lord of the manor?”

“No, I am a stranger.”

“Oh, then, for the fear of God, who visits with misery and
death such as be harmless, tarry not here, but fly! This place
is under his curse—and his Church’s.”

“Let me come in and help you—you are sick and in trouble.”

I was better used to the dim light now. I could see her hollow
eyes fixed upon me. I could see how emaciated she was.

“I tell you the place is under the Church’s ban. Save yourself
—and go, before some straggler see thee here, and report it.”

“Give yourself no trouble about me; I don’t care anything for

the Church’s curse. Let me help you.”

“Now all good spirits—if there be any such—bless thee for

that word. Would God I had a sup of water!—but hold, hold,
forget I said it, and fly; for there is that here that even he
that feareth not the Church must fear: this disease whereof
we die. Leave us, thou brave, good stranger, and take with
thee such whole and sincere blessing as them that be
accursed can give.”

But before this I had picked up a wooden bowl and was

rushing past the king on my way to the brook. It was ten
yards away. When I got back and entered, the king was
within, and was opening the shutter that closed the window-
hole, to let in air and light. The place was full of a foul
stench. I put the bowl to the woman’s lips, and as she
gripped it with her eager talons the shutter came open and a
strong light flooded her face. Smallpox!

I sprang to the king, and said in his ear:

“Out of the door on the instant, sire! the woman is dying of

that disease that wasted the skirts of Camelot two years
ago.”
He did not budge.

“Of a truth I shall remain—and likewise help.”

I whispered again:

“King, it must not be. You must go.”

“Ye mean well, and ye speak not unwisely. But it were shame
that a king should know fear, and shame that belted knight
should withhold his hand where be such as need succor.
Peace, I will not go. It is you who must go. The Church’s ban
is not upon me, but it forbiddeth you to be here, and she will
deal with you with a heavy hand an word come to her of
your trespass.”

It was a desperate place for him to be in, and might cost him
his life, but it was no use to argue with him. If he considered
his knightly honor at stake here, that was the end of
argument; he would stay, and nothing could prevent it; I was
aware of that. And so I dropped the subject. The woman
spoke:

“Fair sir, of your kindness will ye climb the ladder there, and
bring me news of what ye find? Be not afraid to report, for
times can come when even a mother’s heart is past breaking
—being already broke.”

“Abide,” said the king, “and give the woman to eat. I will go.”
And he put down the knapsack.

I turned to start, but the king had already started. He halted,

and looked down upon a man who lay in a dim light, and had
not noticed us thus far, or spoken.

“Is it your husband?” the king asked.

“Yes.”

“Is he asleep?”

“God be thanked for that one charity, yes—these three

hours. Where shall I pay to the full, my gratitude! for my
heart is bursting with it for that sleep he sleepeth now.”

I said:

“We will be careful. We will not wake him.”

“Ah, no, that ye will not, for he is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, what triumph it is to know it! None can harm him, none
insult him more. He is in heaven now, and happy; or if not
there, he bides in hell and is content; for in that place he will
find neither abbot nor yet bishop. We were boy and girl
together; we were man and wife these five and twenty years,
and never separated till this day. Think how long that is to
love and suffer together. This morning was he out of his
mind, and in his fancy we were boy and girl again and
wandering in the happy fields; and so in that innocent glad
converse wandered he far and farther, still lightly gossiping,
and entered into those other fields we know not of, and was
shut away from mortal sight. And so there was no parting,
for in his fancy I went with him; he knew not but I went with
him, my hand in his—my young soft hand, not this withered
claw. Ah, yes, to go, and know it not; to separate and know it
not; how could one go peace—fuller than that? It was his
reward for a cruel life patiently borne.”

There was a slight noise from the direction of the dim corner
where the ladder was. It was the king descending. I could see
that he was bearing something in one arm, and assisting
himself with the other. He came forward into the light; upon
his breast lay a slender girl of fifteen. She was but half
conscious; she was dying of smallpox. Here was heroism at
its last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this was
challenging death in the open field unarmed, with all the
odds against the challenger, no reward set upon the contest,
and no admiring world in silks and cloth of gold to gaze and
applaud; and yet the king’s bearing was as serenely brave as
it had always been in those cheaper contests where knight
meets knight in equal fight and clothed in protecting steel.
He was great now; sublimely great. The rude statues of his
ancestors in his palace should have an addition—I would see
to that; and it would not be a mailed king killing a giant or a
dragon, like the rest, it would be a king in commoner’s garb
bearing death in his arms that a peasant mother might look
her last upon her child and be comforted.

He laid the girl down by her mother, who poured out

endearments and caresses from an overflowing heart, and
one could detect a flickering faint light of response in the
child’s eyes, but that was all. The mother hung over her,
kissing her, petting her, and imploring her to speak, but the
lips only moved and no sound came. I snatched my liquor
flask from my knapsack, but the woman forbade me, and
said:

“No—she does not suffer; it is better so. It might bring her

back to life. None that be so good and kind as ye are would
do her that cruel hurt. For look you—what is left to live for?
Her brothers are gone, her father is gone, her mother goeth,
the Church’s curse is upon her, and none may shelter or
befriend her even though she lay perishing in the road. She
is desolate. I have not asked you, good heart, if her sister be
still on live, here overhead; I had no need; ye had gone
back, else, and not left the poor thing forsaken—”

“She lieth at peace,” interrupted the king, in a subdued

voice.

“I would not change it. How rich is this day in happiness! Ah,
my Annis, thou shalt join thy sister soon—thou’rt on thy way,
and these be merciful friends that will not hinder.”

And so she fell to murmuring and cooing over the girl again,
and softly stroking her face and hair, and kissing her and
calling her by endearing names; but there was scarcely sign
of response now in the glazing eyes. I saw tears well from
the king’s eyes, and trickle down his face. The woman
noticed them, too, and said:

“Ah, I know that sign: thou’st a wife at home, poor soul, and
you and she have gone hungry to bed, many’s the time, that
the little ones might have your crust; you know what poverty
is, and the daily insults of your betters, and the heavy hand
of the Church and the king.”

The king winced under this accidental home-shot, but kept

still; he was learning his part; and he was playing it well,
too, for a pretty dull beginner. I struck up a diversion. I
offered the woman food and liquor, but she refused both. She
would allow nothing to come between her and the release of
death. Then I slipped away and brought the dead child from
aloft, and laid it by her. This broke her down again, and there
was another scene that was full of heartbreak. By and by I
made another diversion, and beguiled her to sketch her
story.

“Ye know it well yourselves, having suffered it—for truly

none of our condition in Britain escape it. It is the old, weary
tale. We fought and struggled and succeeded; meaning by
success, that we lived and did not die; more than that is not
to be claimed. No troubles came that we could not outlive, till
this year brought them; then came they all at once, as one
might say, and overwhelmed us. Years ago the lord of the
manor planted certain fruit trees on our farm; in the best
part of it, too—a grievous wrong and shame—”

“But it was his right,” interrupted the king.

“None denieth that, indeed; an the law mean anything, what

is the lord’s is his, and what is mine is his also. Our farm was
ours by lease, therefore ’twas likewise his, to do with it as he
would. Some little time ago, three of those trees were found
hewn down. Our three grown sons ran frightened to report
the crime. Well, in his lordship’s dungeon there they lie, who
saith there shall they lie and rot till they confess. They have
naught to confess, being innocent, wherefore there will they
remain until they die. Ye know that right well, I ween. Think
how this left us; a man, a woman and two children, to gather
a crop that was planted by so much greater force, yes, and
protect it night and day from pigeons and prowling animals
that be sacred and must not be hurt by any of our sort.
When my lord’s crop was nearly ready for the harvest, so
also was ours; when his bell rang to call us to his fields to
harvest his crop for nothing, he would not allow that I and
my two girls should count for our three captive sons, but for
only two of them; so, for the lacking one were we daily fined.
All this time our own crop was perishing through neglect;
and so both the priest and his lordship fined us because their
shares of it were suffering through damage. In the end the
fines ate up our crop—and they took it all; they took it all
and made us harvest it for them, without pay or food, and we
starving. Then the worst came when I, being out of my mind
with hunger and loss of my boys, and grief to see my
husband and my little maids in rags and misery and despair,
uttered a deep blasphemy—oh! a thousand of them!—against
the Church and the Church’s ways. It was ten days ago. I had
fallen sick with this dis ease, and it was to the priest I said
the words, for he was come to chide me for lack of due
humility under the chastening hand of God. He carried my
trespass to his betters; I was stubborn; wherefore, presently
upon my head and upon all heads that were dear to me, fell
the curse of Rome.

“Since that day we are avoided, shunned with horror. None

has come near this hut to know whether we live or not. The
rest of us were taken down. Then I roused me and got up, as
wife and mother will. It was little they could have eaten in
any case; it was less than little they had to eat. But there
was water, and I gave them that. How they craved it! and
how they blessed it! But the end came yesterday; my
strength broke down. Yesterday was the last time I ever saw
my husband and this youngest child alive. I have lain here
all these hours—these ages, ye may say—listening, listening
for any sound up there that—”

She gave a sharp quick glance at her eldest daughter, then

cried out, “Oh, my darling!” and feebly gathered the
stiffening form to her sheltering arms. She had recognized
the death-rattle.
Chpater XXX. The Tragedy of the
Manor-House
AT midnight all was over, and we sat in the presence of four
corpses. We covered them with such rags as we could find,
and started away, fastening the door behind us. Their home
must be these people’s grave, for they could not have
Christian burial, or be admitted to consecrated ground. They
were as dogs, wild beasts, lepers, and no soul that valued its
hope of eternal life would throw it away by meddling in any
sort with these rebuked and smitten outcasts.

We had not moved four steps when I caught a sound as of

footsteps upon gravel. My heart flew to my throat. We must
not be seen coming from that house. I plucked at the king’s
robe and we drew back and took shelter behind the corner of
the cabin.

“Now we are safe,” I said, “but it was a close call—so to

speak. If the night had been lighter he might have seen us,
no doubt, he seemed to be so near.”

“Mayhap it is but a beast and not a man at all.”

“True. But man or beast, it will be wise to stay here a minute

and let it get by and out of the way.”

“Hark! It cometh hither.”

True again. The step was coming toward us—straight toward

the hut. It must be a beast, then, and we might as well have
saved our trepidation. I was going to step out, but the king
laid his hand upon my arm. There was a moment of silence,
then we heard a soft knock on the cabin door. It made me
shiver. Presently the knock was repeated, and then we heard
these words in a guarded voice:

“Mother! Father! Open—we have got free, and we bring news

to pale your cheeks but glad your hearts; and we may not
tarry, but must fly! And—but they answer not. Mother!
father!—”

I drew the king toward the other end of the hut and
whispered:

“Come—now we can get to the road.”

The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just then we

heard the door give way, and knew that those desolate men
were in the presence of their dead.

“Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a light, and

then will follow that which it would break your heart to hear.”

He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were in the

road I ran; and after a moment he threw dignity aside and
followed. I did not want to think of what was happening in
the hut—I couldn’t bear it; I wanted to drive it out of my
mind; so I struck into the first subject that lay under that
one in my mind:

“I have had the disease those people died of, and so have
nothing to fear; but if you have not had it also—”

He broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and it was his

conscience that was troubling him:
“These young men have got free, they say—but how? It is
not likely that their lord hath set them free.”

“Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped.”

“That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, and your

suspicion doth confirm it, you having the same fear.

“I should not call it by that name though. I do suspect that

they escaped, but if they did, I am not sorry, certainly.”

“I am not sorry, I think—but—”

“What is it? What is there for one to be troubled about?”

“IF they did escape, then are we bound in duty to lay hands
upon them and deliver them again to their lord; for it is not
seemly that one of his quality should suffer a so insolent and
high-handed outrage from persons of their base degree.”

There it was again. He could see only one side of it. He was
born so, educated so, his veins were full of ancestral blood
that was rotten with this sort of unconscious brutality,
brought down by inheritance from a long procession of hearts
that had each done its share toward poisoning the stream. To
imprison these men without proof, and starve their kindred,
was no harm, for they were merely peasants and subject to
the will and pleasure of their lord, no matter what fearful
form it might take; but for these men to break out of unjust
captivity was insult and outrage, and a thing not to be
countenanced by any conscientious person who knew his
duty to his sacred caste.

I worked more than half an hour before I got him to change

the subject—and even then an outside matter did it for me.
This was a something which caught our eyes as we struck the
summit of a small hill—a red glow, a good way off.

“That’s a fire,” said I.

Fires interested me considerably, because I was get ting a

good deal of an insurance business started, and was also
training some horses and building some steam fire-engines,
with an eye to a paid fire department by and by. The priests
opposed both my fire and life insurance, on the ground that
it was an insolent attempt to hinder the decrees of God; and
if you pointed out that they did not hinder the decrees in the
least, but only modified the hard consequences of them if
you took out policies and had luck, they retorted that that
was gambling against the decrees of God, and was just as
bad. So they managed to damage those industries more or
less, but I got even on my Accident business. As a rule, a
knight is a lummox, and some times even a labrick, and
hence open to pretty poor arguments when they come glibly
from a superstition-monger, but even he could see the
practical side of a thing once in a while; and so of late you
couldn’t clean up a tournament and pile the result without
finding one of my accident-tickets in every helmet.

We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and stillness,

looking toward the red blur in the distance, and trying to
make out the meaning of a far-away murmur that rose and
fell fitfully on the night. Sometimes it swelled up and for a
moment seemed less remote; but when we were hopefully
expecting it to betray its cause and nature, it dulled and sank
again, carrying its mystery with it. We started down the hill
in its direction, and the winding road plunged us at once into
almost solid darkness—darkness that was packed and
crammed in between two tall forest walls. We groped along
down for half a mile, perhaps, that murmur growing more
and more distinct all the time. the coming storm threatening
more and more, with now and then a little shiver of wind, a
faint show of lightning, and dull grumblings of distant
thunder. I was in the lead. I ran against something—a soft
heavy something which gave, slightly, to the impulse of my
weight; at the same moment the lightning glared out, and
within a foot of my face was the writhing face of a man who
was hanging from the limb of a tree! That is, it seemed to be
writhing, but it was not. It was a grewsome sight.
Straightway there was an ear- splitting explosion of thunder,
and the bottom of heaven fell out; the rain poured down in a
deluge. No matter, we must try to cut this man down, on the
chance that there might be life in him yet, mustn’t we? The
lightning came quick and sharp now, and the place was
alternately noonday and midnight. One moment the man
would be hanging before me in an intense light, and the next
he was blotted out again in the darkness. I told the king we
must cut him down. The king at once objected.

“If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose him property to

his lord; so let him be. If others hanged him, belike they had
the right—let him hang.”

“But—”

“But me no buts, but even leave him as he is. And for yet
another reason. When the lightning cometh again—there,
look abroad.”

Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!

“It is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies unto

dead folk. They are past thanking you. Come—it is
unprofitable to tarry here.”

There was reason in what he said, so we moved on. Within

the next mile we counted six more hanging forms by the
blaze of the lightning, and altogether it was a grisly
excursion. That murmur was a murmur no longer, it was a
roar; a roar of men’s voices. A man came flying by now,
dimly through the darkness, and other men chasing him.
They disappeared. Presently another case of the kind
occurred, and then another and another. Then a sudden turn
of the road brought us in sight of that fire—it was a large
manor-house, and little or nothing was left of it—and every-
where men were flying and other men raging after them in
pursuit.

I warned the king that this was not a safe place for
strangers. We would better get away from the light, until
matters should improve. We stepped back a little, and hid in
the edge of the wood. From this hiding-place we saw both
men and women hunted by the mob. The fearful work went
on until nearly dawn. Then, the fire being out and the storm
spent, the voices and flying footsteps presently ceased, and
darkness and stillness reigned again.

We ventured out, and hurried cautiously away; and although

we were worn out and sleepy, we kept on until we had put
this place some miles behind us. Then we asked hospitality at
the hut of a charcoal burner, and got what was to be had. A
woman was up and about, but the man was still asleep, on a
straw shake-down, on the clay floor. The woman seemed
uneasy until I explained that we were travelers and had lost
our way and been wandering in the woods all night. She
became talkative, then, and asked if we had heard of the
terrible goings-on at the manor-house of Abblasoure. Yes, we
had heard of them, but what we wanted now was rest and
sleep. The king broke in:

“Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be

perilous company, being late come from people that died of
the Spotted Death.”

It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the commonest

decorations of the nation was the waffle- iron face. I had
early noticed that the woman and her husband were both so
decorated. She made us entirely welcome, and had no fears;
and plainly she was immensely impressed by the king’s
proposition; for, of course, it was a good deal of an event in
her life to run across a person of the king’s humble
appearance who was ready to buy a man’s house for the sake
of a night’s lodging. It gave her a large respect for us, and
she strained the lean possibilities of her hovel to the utmost
to make us comfortable.

We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry
enough to make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the
more particularly as it was scant in quantity. And also in
variety; it consisted solely of onions, salt, and the national
black bread made out of horse feed. The woman told us
about the affair of the evening before. At ten or eleven at
night, when everybody was in bed, the manor-house burst
into flames. The country-side swarmed to the rescue, and the
family were saved, with one exception, the master. He did
not appear. Everybody was frantic over this loss, and two
brave yeomen sacrificed their lives in ransacking the burning
house seeking that valuable personage. But after a while he
was found—what was left of him—which was his corpse. It
was in a copse three hundred yards away, bound, gagged,
stabbed in a dozen places.

Who had done this? Suspicion fell upon a humble family in

the neighborhood who had been lately treated with peculiar
harshness by the baron; and from these people the suspicion
easily extended itself to their relatives and familiars. A
suspicion was enough; my lord’s liveried retainers proclaimed
an instant crusade against these people, and were promptly
joined by the community in general. The woman’s husband
had been active with the mob, and had not returned home
until nearly dawn. He was gone now to find out what the
general result had been. While we were still talking he came
back from his quest. His report was revolting enough.
Eighteen persons hanged or butchered, and two yeomen and
thirteen prisoners lost in the fire.

“And how many prisoners were there altogether in the

vaults?”

“Thirteen.”

“Then every one of them was lost?”

“Yes, all.”

“But the people arrived in time to save the family; how is it

they could save none of the prisoners?”

The man looked puzzled, and said:

“Would one unlock the vaults at such a time? Marry, some

would have escaped.”

“Then you mean that nobody did unlock them?”

“None went near them, either to lock or unlock. It standeth

to reason that the bolts were fast; where fore it was only
needful to establish a watch, so that if any broke the bonds
he might not escape, but be taken. None were taken.”

“Natheless, three did escape,” said the king, “and ye will do

well to publish it and set justice upon their track, for these
murthered the baron and fired the house.”

I was just expecting he would come out with that. For a

moment the man and his wife showed an eager interest in
this news and an impatience to go out and spread it; then a
sudden something else betrayed itself in their faces, and
they began to ask questions. I answered the questions
myself, and narrowly watched the effects produced. I was
soon satisfied that the knowledge of who these three
prisoners were had somehow changed the atmosphere; that
our hosts’ continued eagerness to go and spread the news
was now only pretended and not real. The king did not notice
the change, and I was glad of that. I worked the conversation
around toward other details of the night’s proceedings, and
noted that these people were relieved to have it take that
direction.

The painful thing observable about all this business was the
alacrity with which this oppressed community had turned
their cruel hands against their own class in the interest of
the common oppressor. This man and woman seemed to feel
that in a quarrel between a person of their own class and his
lord, it was the natural and proper and rightful thing for that
poor devil’s whole caste to side with the master and fight his
battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire into the
rights or wrongs of the matter. This man had been out
helping to hang his neighbors, and had done his work with
zeal, and yet was aware that there was nothing against them
but a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it describable as
evidence, still neither he nor his wife seemed to see anything
horrible about it.

This was depressing—to a man with the dream of a republic

in his head. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries
away, when the “poor whites” of our South who were always
despised and frequently insulted by the slave-lords around
them, and who owed their base condition simply to the
presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously
ready to side with the slave-lords in all political moves for
the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also
finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an
effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution
which degraded them. And there was only one redeeming
feature connected with that pitiful piece of history; and that
was, that secretly the “poor white” did detest the slave-lord,
and did feel his own shame. That feeling was not brought to
the surface, but the fact that it was there and could have
been brought out, under favoring circumstances, was
something—in fact, it was enough; for it showed that a man
is at bottom a man, after all, even if it doesn’t show on the
outside.

Well, as it turned out, this charcoal burner was just the twin
of the Southern “poor white” of the far future. The king
presently showed impatience, and said:

“An ye prattle here all the day, justice will miscarry. Think ye
the criminals will abide in their father’s house? They are
fleeing, they are not waiting. You should look to it that a
party of horse be set upon their track.”

The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, and the man
looked flustered and irresolute. I said:

“Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you, and explain
which direction I think they would try to take. If they were
merely resisters of the gabelle or some kindred absurdity I
would try to protect them from capture; but when men
murder a person of high degree and likewise burn his house,
that is another matter.”
The last remark was for the king—to quiet him. On the road
the man pulled his resolution together, and began the march
with a steady gait, but there was no eagerness in it. By and
by I said:

“What relation were these men to you—cousins?”

He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let him,

and stopped, trembling.

“Ah, my God, how know ye that?”

“I didn’t know it; it was a chance guess.”

“Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too.”

“Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?”

He didn’t quite know how to take that; but he said,

hesitatingly:

“Ye-s.”

“Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!”

It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.

“Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that
ye would not betray me an I failed of my duty.”

“Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to

keep still and let those men get away. They’ve done a
righteous deed.”

He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension

at the same time. He looked up and down the road to see
that no one was coming, and then said in a cautious voice:
“From what land come you, brother, that you speak such
perilous words, and seem not to be afraid?”

“They are not perilous words when spoken to one of my own

caste, I take it. You would not tell anybody I said them?”

“I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses first.”

“Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears of your

repeating it. I think devil’s work has been done last night
upon those innocent poor people. That old baron got only
what he deserved. If I had my way. all his kind should have
the same luck.”

Fear and depression vanished from the man’s manner, and

gratefulness and a brave animation took their place:

“Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap for my

undoing, yet are they such refreshment that to hear them
again and others like to them, I would go to the gallows
happy, as having had one good feast at least in a starved life.
And I will say my say now, and ye may report it if ye be so
minded. I helped to hang my neighbors for that it were peril
to my own life to show lack of zeal in the master’s cause; the
others helped for none other reason. All rejoice to day that
he is dead, but all do go about seemingly sorrowing, and
shedding the hypocrite’s tear, for in that lies safety. I have
said the words, I have said the words! the only ones that
have ever tasted good in my mouth, and the reward of that
taste is sufficient. Lead on, an ye will, be it even to the
scaffold, for I am ready.”

There it was, you see. A man is a man, at bottom. Whole

ages of abuse and oppression cannot crush the manhood
clear out of him. Whoever thinks it a mistake is himself
mistaken. Yes, there is plenty good enough material for a
republic in the most degraded people that ever existed—even
the Russians; plenty of manhood in them—even in the
Germans—if one could but force it out of its timid and
suspicious privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any
throne that ever was set up and any nobility that ever
supported it. We should see certain things yet, let us hope
and believe. First, a modified monarchy, till Arthur’s days
were done, then the destruction of the throne, nobility
abolished, every member of it bound out to some useful
trade, universal suffrage instituted, and the whole
government placed in the hands of the men and women of
the nation there to remain. Yes, there was no occasion to
give up my dream yet a while.
Chapter XXXI. Marco
WE strolled along in a sufficiently indolent fashion now, and
talked. We must dispose of about the amount of time it ought
to take to go to the little hamlet of Abblasoure and put
justice on the track of those murderers and get back home
again. And mean time I had an auxiliary interest which had
never paled yet, never lost its novelty for me since I had
been in Arthur’s kingdom: the behavior—born of nice and
exact subdivisions of caste—of chance passers-by toward
each other. Toward the shaven monk who trudged along with
his cowl tilted back and the sweat washing down his fat
jowls, the coal-burner was deeply reverent; to the gentleman
he was abject; with the small farmer and the free mechanic
he was cordial and gossipy; and when a slave passed by with
a countenance respectfully lowered, this chap’s nose was in
the air—he couldn’t even see him. Well, there are times
when one would like to hang the whole human race and
finish the farce.

Presently we struck an incident. A small mob of half-naked

boys and girls came tearing out of the woods, scared and
shrieking. The eldest among them were not more than
twelve or fourteen years old. They implored help, but they
were so beside themselves that we couldn’t make out what
the matter was. However, we plunged into the wood, they
skurrying in the lead, and the trouble was quickly revealed:
they had hanged a little fellow with a bark rope, and he was
kicking and struggling, in the process of choking to death.
We rescued him, and fetched him around. It was some more
human nature; the admiring little folk imitating their elders;
they were playing mob, and had achieved a success which
promised to be a good deal more serious than they had
bargained for.

It was not a dull excursion for me. I managed to put in the

time very well. I made various acquaintanceships, and in my
quality of stranger was able to ask as many questions as I
wanted to. A thing which naturally interested me, as a
statesman, was the matter of wages. I picked up what I could
under that head during the afternoon. A man who hasn’t had
much experience, and doesn’t think, is apt to measure a
nation’s prosperity or lack of prosperity by the mere size of
the prevailing wages; if the wages be high, the nation is
prosperous; if low, it isn’t. Which is an error. It isn’t what
sum you get, it’s how much you can buy with it, that’s the
important thing; and it’s that that tells whether your wages
are high in fact or only high in name. I could remember how
it was in the time of our great civil war in the nineteenth
century. In the North a carpenter got three dollars a day,
gold valuation; in the South he got fifty—payable in
Confederate shinplasters worth a dollar a bushel. In the
North a suit of overalls cost three dollars—a day’s wages; in
the South it cost seventy five—which was two days’ wages.
Other things were in proportion. Consequently, wages were
twice as high in the North as they were in the South,
because the one wage had that much more purchasing power
than the other had.

Yes, I made various acquaintances in the hamlet and a thing

that gratified me a good deal was to find our new coins in
circulation—lots of milrays, lots of mills, lots of cents, a good
many nickels, and some silver; all this among the artisans
and commonalty generally; yes, and even some gold—but
that was at the bank, that is to say, the goldsmith’s. I
dropped in there while Marco, the son of Marco, was haggling
with a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt, and
asked for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece. They
furnished it—that is, after they had chewed the piece, and
rung it on the counter, and tried acid on it, and asked me
where I got it, and who I was, and where I was from, and
where I was going to, and when I expected to get there, and
perhaps a couple of hundred more questions; and when they
got aground, I went right on and furnished them a lot of
information voluntarily; told them I owned a dog, and his
name was Watch, and my first wife was a Free Will Baptist,
and her grandfather was a Prohibitionist, and I used to know
a man who had two thumbs on each hand and a wart on the
inside of his upper lip, and died in the hope of a glorious
resurrection, and so on, and so on, and so on, till even that
hungry village questioner began to look satisfied, and also a
shade put out; but he had to respect a man of my financial
strength, and so he didn’t give me any lip, but I noticed he
took it out of his underlings, which was a perfectly natural
thing to do. Yes, they changed my twenty, but I judged it
strained the bank a little, which was a thing to be expected,
for it was the same as walking into a paltry village store in
the nineteenth century and requiring the boss of it to change
a two thousand-dollar bill for you all of a sudden. He could do
it, maybe; but at the same time he would wonder how a
small farmer happened to be carrying so much money
around in his pocket; which was probably this goldsmith’s
thought, too; for he followed me to the door and stood there
gazing after me with reverent admiration.

Our new money was not only handsomely circulating, but its
language was already glibly in use; that is to say, people had
dropped the names of the former moneys, and spoke of
things as being worth so many dollars or cents or mills or
milrays now. It was very gratifying. We were progressing,
that was sure.
I got to know several master mechanics, but about the most
interesting fellow among them was the black smith, Dowley.
He was a live man and a brisk talker, and had two
journeymen and three apprentices, and was doing a raging
business. In fact, he was getting rich, hand over fist, and was
vastly respected. Marco was very proud of having such a man
for a friend. He had taken me there ostensibly to let me see
the big establishment which bought so much of his charcoal,
but really to let me see what easy and almost familiar terms
he was on with this great man. Dowley and I fraternized at
once; I had had just such picked men, splendid fellows,
under me in the Colt Arms Factory. I was bound to see more
of him, so I invited him to come out to Marco’s Sunday, and
dine with us. Marco was appalled, and held his breath; and
when the grandee accepted, he was so grateful that he
almost forgot to be astonished at the condescension.

Marco’s joy was exuberant—but only for a moment; then he

grew thoughtful, then sad; and when he heard me tell
Dowley I should have Dickon, the boss mason, and Smug,
the boss wheelwright, out there, too, the coal-dust on his
face turned to chalk, and he lost his grip. But I knew what
was the matter with him; it was the expense. He saw ruin
before him; he judged that his financial days were
numbered. However, on our way to invite the others, I said:

“You must allow me to have these friends come; and you

must also allow me to pay the costs.”

His face cleared, and he said with spirit:

“But not all of it, not all of it. Ye cannot well bear a burden
like to this alone.”

I stopped him, and said:

“Now let’s understand each other on the spot, old friend. I
am only a farm bailiff, it is true; but I am not poor,
nevertheless. I have been very fortunate this year—you
would be astonished to know how I have thriven. I tell you
the honest truth when I say I could squander away as many
as a dozen feasts like this and never care THAT for the
expense!” and I snapped my fingers. I could see myself rise a
foot at a time in Marco’s estimation, and when I fetched out
those last words I was become a very tower for style and
altitude. “So you see, you must let me have my way. You
can’t contribute a cent to this orgy, that’s settled.”

“It’s grand and good of you—”

“No, it isn’t. You’ve opened your house to Jones and me in

the most generous way; Jones was remarking upon it to-day,
just before you came back from the village; for although he
wouldn’t be likely to say such a thing to you—because Jones
isn’t a talker, and is diffident in society—he has a good heart
and a grateful, and knows how to appreciate it when he is
well treated; yes, you and your wife have been very
hospitable toward us—”

“Ah, brother, ’tis nothing—such hospitality!”

“But it is something; the best a man has, freely given, is

always something, and is as good as a prince can do, and
ranks right along beside it—for even a prince can but do his
best. And so we’ll shop around and get up this layout now,
and don’t you worry about the expense. I’m one of the worst
spendthrifts that ever was born. Why, do you know,
sometimes in a single week I spend—but never mind about
that—you’d never believe it anyway.”

And so we went gadding along, dropping in here and there,

pricing things, and gossiping with the shopkeepers about the
riot, and now and then running across pathetic reminders of
it, in the persons of shunned and tearful and houseless
remnants of families whose homes had been taken from
them and their parents butchered or hanged. The raiment of
Marco and his wife was of coarse tow-linen and linsey-
woolsey respectively, and resembled township maps, it being
made up pretty exclusively of patches which had been added,
township by township, in the course of five or six years, until
hardly a hand’s-breadth of the original garments was
surviving and present. Now I wanted to fit these people out
with new suits, on account of that swell company, and I didn’t
know just how to get at it—with delicacy, until at last it
struck me that as I had already been liberal in inventing
wordy gratitude for the king, it would be just the thing to
back it up with evidence of a substantial sort; so I said:

“And Marco, there’s another thing which you must permit—

out of kindness for Jones—because you wouldn’t want to
offend him. He was very anxious to testify his appreciation in
some way, but he is so diffident he couldn’t venture it
himself, and so he begged me to buy some little things and
give them to you and Dame Phyllis and let him pay for them
without your ever knowing they came from him—you know
how a delicate person feels about that sort of thing—and so I
said I would, and we would keep mum. Well, his idea was, a
new outfit of clothes for you both—”

“Oh, it is wastefulness! It may not be, brother, it may not be.

Consider the vastness of the sum—”

“Hang the vastness of the sum! Try to keep quiet for a

moment, and see how it would seem; a body can’t get in a
word edgeways, you talk so much. You ought to cure that,
Marco; it isn’t good form, you know, and it will grow on you if
you don’t check it. Yes, we’ll step in here now and price this
man’s stuff—and don’t forget to remember to not let on to
Jones that you know he had anything to do with it. You can’t
think how curiously sensitive and proud he is. He’s a farmer
—pretty fairly well-to-do farmer—an I’m his bailiff; BUT—the
imagination of that man! Why, sometimes when he forgets
himself and gets to blowing off, you’d think he was one of the
swells of the earth; and you might listen to him a hundred
years and never take him for a farmer—especially if he
talked agriculture. He THINKS he’s a Sheol of a farmer;
thinks he’s old Grayback from Wayback; but between you
and me privately he don’t know as much about farming as he
does about running a kingdom—still, whatever he talks
about, you want to drop your underjaw and listen, the same
as if you had never heard such incredible wisdom in all your
life before, and were afraid you might die before you got
enough of it. That will please Jones.”

It tickled Marco to the marrow to hear about such an odd

character; but it also prepared him for accidents; and in my
experience when you travel with a king who is letting on to
be something else and can’t remember it more than about
half the time, you can’t take too many precautions.

This was the best store we had come across yet; it had
everything in it, in small quantities, from anvils and dry
goods all the way down to fish and pinchbeck jewelry. I
concluded I would bunch my whole invoice right here, and
not go pricing around any more. So I got rid of Marco, by
sending him off to invite the mason and the wheelwright,
which left the field free to me. For I never care to do a thing
in a quiet way; it’s got to be theatrical or I don’t take any
interest in it. I showed up money enough, in a careless way,
to corral the shopkeeper’s respect, and then I wrote down a
list of the things I wanted, and handed it to him to see if he
could read it. He could, and was proud to show that he could.
He said he had been educated by a priest, and could both
read and write. He ran it through, and remarked with
satisfaction that it was a pretty heavy bill. Well, and so it
was, for a little concern like that. I was not only providing a
swell dinner, but some odds and ends of extras. I ordered
that the things be carted out and delivered at the dwelling of
Marco, the son of Marco, by Saturday evening, and send me
the bill at dinner-time Sunday. He said I could depend upon
his promptness and exactitude, it was the rule of the house.
He also observed that he would throw in a couple of miller-
guns for the Marcos gratis—that everybody was using them
now. He had a mighty opinion of that clever device. I said:

“And please fill them up to the middle mark, too; and add
that to the bill.”

He would, with pleasure. He filled them, and I took them

with me. I couldn’t venture to tell him that the miller-gun
was a little invention of my own, and that I had officially
ordered that every shopkeeper in the kingdom keep them on
hand and sell them at government price—which was the
merest trifle, and the shopkeeper got that, not the
government. We furnished them for nothing.

The king had hardly missed us when we got back at nightfall.

He had early dropped again into his dream of a grand
invasion of Gaul with the whole strength of his kingdom at
his back, and the afternoon had slipped away without his
ever coming to himself again.
Chapter XXXII. Dowley’s Humiliation
WELL, when that cargo arrived toward sunset, Saturday
afternoon, I had my hands full to keep the Marcos from
fainting. They were sure Jones and I were ruined past help,
and they blamed themselves as accessories to this
bankruptcy. You see, in addition to the dinner-materials,
which called for a sufficiently round sum, I had bought a lot
of extras for the future comfort of the family: for instance, a
big lot of wheat, a delicacy as rare to the tables of their class
as was ice-cream to a hermit’s; also a sizeable deal dinner-
table; also two entire pounds of salt, which was another
piece of extravagance in those people’s eyes; also crockery,
stools, the clothes, a small cask of beer, and so on. I
instructed the Marcos to keep quiet about this
sumptuousness, so as to give me a chance to surprise the
guests and show off a little. Concerning the new clothes, the
simple couple were like children; they were up and down, all
night, to see if it wasn’t nearly daylight, so that they could
put them on, and they were into them at last as much as an
hour before dawn was due. Then their pleasure—not to say
delirium—was so fresh and novel and inspiring that the sight
of it paid me well for the interruptions which my sleep had
suffered. The king had slept just as usual—like the dead. The
Marcos could not thank him for their clothes, that being
forbidden; but they tried every way they could think of to
make him see how grateful they were. Which all went for
nothing: he didn’t notice any change.

It turned out to be one of those rich and rare fall days which
is just a June day toned down to a degree where it is heaven
to be out of doors. Toward noon the guests arrived, and we
assembled under a great tree and were soon as sociable as
old acquaintances. Even the king’s reserve melted a little,
though it was some little trouble to him to adjust himself to
the name of Jones along at first. I had asked him to try to
not forget that he was a farmer; but I had also considered it
prudent to ask him to let the thing stand at that, and not
elaborate it any. Because he was just the kind of person you
could depend on to spoil a little thing like that if you didn’t
warn him, his tongue was so handy, and his spirit so willing,
and his information so uncertain.

Dowley was in fine feather, and I early got him started, and
then adroitly worked him around onto his own history for a
text and himself for a hero, and then it was good to sit there
and hear him hum. Self-made man, you know. They know
how to talk. They do deserve more credit than any other
breed of men, yes, that is true; and they are among the very
first to find it out, too. He told how he had begun life an
orphan lad without money and without friends able to help
him; how he had lived as the slaves of the meanest master
lived; how his day’s work was from sixteen to eighteen hours
long, and yielded him only enough black bread to keep him
in a half-fed condition; how his faithful endeavors finally
attracted the attention of a good blacksmith, who came near
knocking him dead with kindness by suddenly offering, when
he was totally unprepared, to take him as his bound
apprentice for nine years and give him board and clothes and
teach him the trade—or “mystery” as Dowley called it. That
was his first great rise, his first gorgeous stroke of fortune;
and you saw that he couldn’t yet speak of it without a sort of
eloquent wonder and delight that such a gilded promotion
should have fallen to the lot of a common human being. He
got no new clothing during his apprenticeship, but on his
graduation day his master tricked him out in spang-new tow-
linens and made him feel unspeakably rich and fine.
“I remember me of that day!” the wheelwright sang out, with
enthusiasm.

“And I likewise!” cried the mason. “I would not believe they

were thine own; in faith I could not.”

“Nor other!” shouted Dowley, with sparkling eyes. “I was like

to lose my character, the neighbors wend ing I had mayhap
been stealing. It was a great day, a great day; one forgetteth
not days like that.”

Yes, and his master was a fine man, and prosperous, and
always had a great feast of meat twice in the year, and with
it white bread, true wheaten bread; in fact, lived like a lord,
so to speak. And in time Dowley succeeded to the business
and married the daughter.

“And now consider what is come to pass,” said he,

impressively. “Two times in every month there is fresh meat
upon my table.” He made a pause here, to let that fact sink
home, then added—”and eight times salt meat.”

“It is even true,” said the wheelwright, with bated breath.

“I know it of mine own knowledge,” said the mason, in the

same reverent fashion.

“On my table appeareth white bread every Sunday in the

year,” added the master smith, with solemnity. “I leave it to
your own consciences, friends, if this is not also true?”

“By my head, yes,” cried the mason.

“I can testify it—and I do,” said the wheelwright.

“And as to furniture, ye shall say yourselves what mine

equipment is. “ He waved his hand in fine gesture of granting
frank and unhampered freedom of speech, and added:
“Speak as ye are moved; speak as ye would speak; an I were
not here.”

“Ye have five stools, and of the sweetest workman ship at

that, albeit your family is but three,” said the wheelwright,
with deep respect.

“And six wooden goblets, and six platters of wood and two of
pewter to cat and drink from withal,” said the mason,
impressively. “And I say it as knowing God is my judge, and
we tarry not here alway, but must answer at the last day for
the things said in the body, be they false or be they sooth.”

“Now ye know what manner of man I am, brother Jones,”

said the smith, with a fine and friendly condescension, “and
doubtless ye would look to find me a man jealous of his due
of respect and but sparing of outgo to strangers till their
rating and quality be assured, but trouble yourself not, as
concerning that; wit ye well ye shall find me a man that
regardeth not these matters but is willing to receive any he
as his fellow and equal that carrieth a right heart in his body,
be his worldly estate howsoever modest. And in token of it,
here is my hand; and I say with my own mouth we are
equals—equals “—and he smiled around on the company with
the satisfaction of a god who is doing the handsome and
gracious thing and is quite well aware of it.

The king took the hand with a poorly disguised reluctance,

and let go of it as willingly as a lady lets go of a fish; all of
which had a good effect, for it was mistaken for an
embarrassment natural to one who was being called upon by
greatness.
The dame brought out the table now, and set it under the
tree. It caused a visible stir of surprise, it being brand new
and a sumptuous article of deal. But the surprise rose higher
still when the dame, with a body oozing easy indifference at
every pore, but eyes that gave it all away by absolutely
flaming with vanity, slowly unfolded an actual simon-pure
tablecloth and spread it. That was a notch above even the
blacksmith’s domestic grandeurs, and it hit him hard; you
could see it. But Marco was in Paradise; you could see that,
too. Then the dame brought two fine new stools—whew! that
was a sensation; it was visible in the eyes of every guest.
Then she brought two more—as calmly as she could.
Sensation again—with awed murmurs. Again she brought
two—walking on air, she was so proud. The guests were
petrified, and the mason muttered:

“There is that about earthly pomps which doth ever move to

reverence.”

As the dame turned away, Marco couldn’t help slapping on

the climax while the thing was hot; so he said with what was
meant for a languid composure but was a poor imitation of it:

“These suffice; leave the rest.”

So there were more yet! It was a fine effect. I couldn’t have

played the hand better myself.

From this out, the madam piled up the surprises with a rush
that fired the general astonishment up to a hundred and fifty
in the shade, and at the same time paralyzed expression of it
down to gasped “Oh’s” and “Ah’s,” and mute upliftings of
hands and eyes. She fetched crockery—new, and plenty of it;
new wooden goblets and other table furniture; and beer, fish,
chicken, a goose, eggs, roast beef, roast mutton, a ham, a
small roast pig, and a wealth of genuine white wheaten
bread. Take it by and large, that spread laid everything far
and away in the shade that ever that crowd had seen before.
And while they sat there just simply stupefied with wonder
and awe, I sort of waved my hand as if by accident, and the
storekeeper’s son emerged from space and said he had come
to collect.

“That’s all right,” I said, indifferently. “What is the amount?

give us the items.”

Then he read off this bill, while those three amazed men
listened, and serene waves of satisfaction rolled over my soul
and alternate waves of terror and admiration surged over
Marco’s:

2 pounds salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

8 dozen pints beer, in the wood. . 800
3 bushels wheat . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,700
2 pounds fish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3 hens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
1 goose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
3 dozen eggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
1 roast of beef . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
1 roast of mutton . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
1 ham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
1 sucking pig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
2 crockery dinner sets . . . . . . . 6,000
2 men’s suits and underwear . . 2,800
1 stuff and 1 linsey-woolsey
gown and underwear . . . . . . . . 1,600
8 wooden goblets . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
Various table furniture . . . . . . .10,000
1 deal table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000
8 stools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000
2 miller guns, loaded . . . . . . . 3,000

He ceased. There was a pale and awful silence. Not a limb

stirred. Not a nostril betrayed the passage of breath.

“Is that all?” I asked, in a voice of the most perfect calmness.

“All, fair sir, save that certain matters of light moment are
placed together under a head hight sundries. If it would like
you, I will sepa—”

“It is of no consequence,” I said, accompanying the words

with a gesture of the most utter indifference; “give me the
grand total, please.”

The clerk leaned against the tree to stay himself, and said:

“Thirty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty mil rays!”

The wheelwright fell off his stool, the others grabbed the
table to save themselves, and there was a deep and general
ejaculation of:

“God be with us in the day of disaster!”

The clerk hastened to say:

“My father chargeth me to say he cannot honorably require

you to pay it all at this time, and therefore only prayeth you
—”

I paid no more heed than if it were the idle breeze, but, with
an air of indifference amounting almost to weariness, got out
my money and tossed four dollars on to the table. Ah, you
should have seen them stare!
The clerk was astonished and charmed. He asked me to
retain one of the dollars as security, until he could go to town
and—I interrupted:

“What, and fetch back nine cents? Nonsense! Take the whole.
Keep the change.”

There was an amazed murmur to this effect:

“Verily this being is made of money! He throweth it away

even as if it were dirt.”

The blacksmith was a crushed man.

The clerk took his money and reeled away drunk with
fortune. I said to Marco and his wife:

“Good folk, here is a little trifle for you”—handing the miller-

guns as if it were a matter of no consequence, though each
of them contained fifteen cents in solid cash; and while the
poor creatures went to pieces with astonishment and
gratitude, I turned to the others and said as calmly as one
would ask the time of day:

“Well, if we are all ready, I judge the dinner is. Come, fall to.”

Ah, well, it was immense; yes, it was a daisy. I don’t know

that I ever put a situation together better, or got happier
spectacular effects out of the materials available. The
blacksmith—well, he was simply mashed. Land! I wouldn’t
have felt what that man was feeling, for anything in the
world. Here he had been blowing and bragging about his
grand meat-feast twice a year, and his fresh meat twice a
month, and his salt meat twice a week, and his white bread
every Sunday the year round—all for a family of three; the
entire cost for the year not above 69.2.6 (sixty-nine cents,
two mills and six milrays), and all of a sudden here comes
along a man who slashes out nearly four dollars on a single
blow-out; and not only that, but acts as if it made him tired
to handle such small sums. Yes, Dowley was a good deal
wilted, and shrunk-up and collapsed; he had the aspect of a
bladder-balloon that’s been stepped on by a cow.
Chapter XXXIII. Sixth Century Political
Economy
HOWEVER, I made a dead set at him, and before the first
third of the dinner was reached, I had him happy again. It
was easy to do—in a country of ranks and castes. You see, in
a country where they have ranks and castes, a man isn’t
ever a man, he is only part of a man, he can’t ever get his
full growth. You prove your superiority over him in station,
or rank, or fortune, and that’s the end of it—he knuckles
down. You can’t insult him after that. No, I don’t mean quite
that; of course you CAN insult him, I only mean it’s difficult;
and so, unless you’ve got a lot of useless time on your hands
it doesn’t pay to try. I had the smith’s reverence now,
because I was apparently immensely prosperous and rich; I
could have had his adoration if I had had some little
gimcrack title of nobility. And not only his, but any
commoner’s in the land, though he were the mightiest
production of all the ages, in intellect, worth, and character,
and I bankrupt in all three. This was to remain so, as long as
England should exist in the earth. With the spirit of prophecy
upon me, I could look into the future and see her erect
statues and monuments to her unspeakable Georges and
other royal and noble clothes-horses, and leave unhonored
the creators of this world—after God—Gutenburg, Watt,
Arkwright, Whitney, Morse, Stephenson, Bell.

The king got his cargo aboard, and then, the talk not turning
upon battle, conquest, or iron-clad duel, he dulled down to
drowsiness and went off to take a nap. Mrs. Marco cleared
the table, placed the beer keg handy, and went away to eat
her dinner of leavings in humble privacy, and the rest of us
soon drifted into matters near and dear to the hearts of our
sort—business and wages, of course. At a first glance, things
appeared to be exceeding prosperous in this little tributary
kingdom—whose lord was King Bagdemagus—as compared
with the state of things in my own region. They had the
“protection” system in full force here, whereas we were
working along down toward free-trade, by easy stages, and
were now about half way. Before long, Dowley and I were
doing all the talking, the others hungrily listening. Dowley
warmed to his work, snuffed an advantage in the air, and
began to put questions which he considered pretty awkward
ones for me, and they did have something of that look:

“In your country, brother, what is the wage of a master

bailiff, master hind, carter, shepherd, swineherd?”

“Twenty-five milrays a day; that is to say, a quarter of a

cent.

The smith’s face beamed with joy. He said:

“With us they are allowed the double of it! And what may a
mechanic get—carpenter, dauber, mason, painter, blacksmith,
wheelwright, and the like?”

“On the average, fifty milrays; half a cent a day.”

“Ho-ho! With us they are allowed a hundred! With us any

good mechanic is allowed a cent a day! I count out the tailor,
but not the others—they are all allowed a cent a day, and in
driving times they get more—yes, up to a hundred and ten
and even fifteen milrays a day. I’ve paid a hundred and
fifteen myself, within the week. ‘Rah for protection—to Sheol
with free-trade!”

And his face shone upon the company like a sunburst. But I
didn’t scare at all. I rigged up my pile-driver, and allowed
myself fifteen minutes to drive him into the earth—drive him
ALL in—drive him in till not even the curve of his skull
should show above ground. Here is the way I started in on
him. I asked:

“What do you pay a pound for salt?”

“A hundred milrays.”

“We pay forty. What do you pay for beef and mutton—when
you buy it?” That was a neat hit; it made the color come.

“It varieth somewhat, but not much; one may say 75 milrays
the pound.”

“We pay 33. What do you pay for eggs?”

“Fifty milrays the dozen.”

“We pay 20. What do you pay for beer?”

“It costeth us 8 1/2 milrays the pint.”

“We get it for 4; 25 bottles for a cent. What do you pay for
wheat?”

“At the rate of 900 milrays the bushel.”

“We pay 400. What do you pay for a man’s tow- linen suit?”

“Thirteen cents.”

“We pay 6. What do you pay for a stuff gown for the wife of
the laborer or the mechanic?”

“We pay 8.4.0.”

“Well, observe the difference: you pay eight cents and four
mills, we pay only four cents.” I prepared now to sock it to
him. l said: “Look here, dear friend, What’s become of your
high wages you were bragging so about a few minutes
ago?”—and I looked around on the company with placid
satisfaction, for I had slipped up on him gradually and tied
him hand and foot, you see, without his ever noticing that he
was being tied at all. “What’s become of those noble high
wages of yours?—I seem to have knocked the stuffing all out
of them, it appears to me.”

But if you will believe me, he merely looked surprised, that is

all! he didn’t grasp the situation at all, didn’t know he had
walked into a trap, didn’t discover that he was IN a trap. I
could have shot him, from sheer vexation. With cloudy eye
and a struggling intellect he fetched this out:

“Marry, I seem not to understand. It is proved that our wages

be double thine; how then may it be that thou’st knocked
therefrom the stuffing?—an miscall not the wonderly word,
this being the first time under grace and providence of God it
hath been granted me to hear it.”

Well, I was stunned; partly with this unlooked-for stupidity

on his part, and partly because his fellows so manifestly
sided with him and were of his mind—if you might call it
mind. My position was simple enough, plain enough; how
could it ever be simplified more? However, I must try:

“Why, look here, brother Dowley, don’t you see? Your wages
are merely higher than ours in name, not in fact.”

“Hear him! They are the double—ye have confessed it

yourself.”
“Yes-yes, I don’t deny that at all. But that’s got nothing to do
with it; the amount of the wages in mere coins, with
meaningless names attached to them to know them by, has
got nothing to do with it. The thing is, how much can you
buy with your wages?—that’s the idea. While it is true that
with you a good mechanic is allowed about three dollars and
a half a year, and with us only about a dollar and seventy-
five—”

“There—ye’re confessing it again, ye’re confessing it again!”

“Confound it, I’ve never denied it, I tell you! What I say is
this. With us half a dollar buys more than a dollar buys with
you—and therefore it stands to reason and the commonest
kind of common-sense, that our wages are higher than
yours.”

He looked dazed, and said, despairingly:

“Verily, I cannot make it out. Ye’ve just said ours are the
higher, and with the same breath ye take it back.”

“Oh, great Scott, isn’t it possible to get such a simple thing

through your head? Now look here—let me illustrate. We pay
four cents for a woman’s stuff gown, you pay 8.4.0, which is
four mills more than double. What do you allow a laboring
woman who works on a farm?”

“Two mills a day.”

“Very good; we allow but half as much; we pay her only a

tenth of a cent a day; and—”

“Again ye’re conf—”

“Wait! Now, you see, the thing is very simple; this time you’ll
understand it. For instance, it takes your woman 42 days to
earn her gown, at 2 mills a day—7 weeks’ work; but ours
earns hers in forty days—two days short of 7 weeks. Your
woman has a gown, and her whole seven weeks wages are
gone; ours has a gown, and two days’ wages left, to buy
something else with. There—now you understand it!”

He looked—well, he merely looked dubious, it’s the most I

can say; so did the others. I waited—to let the thing work.
Dowley spoke at last—and betrayed the fact that he actually
hadn’t gotten away from his rooted and grounded
superstitions yet. He said, with a trifle of hesitancy:

“But—but—ye cannot fail to grant that two mills a day is

better than one.”

Shucks! Well, of course, I hated to give it up. So I chanced

another flyer:

“Let us suppose a case. Suppose one of your journeymen

goes out and buys the following articles:

“1 pound of salt; 1 dozen eggs; 1 dozen pints of beer; 1

bushel of wheat; 1 tow-linen suit; 5 pounds of beef; 5
pounds of mutton.

“The lot will cost him 32 cents. It takes him 32 working days
to earn the money—5 weeks and 2 days. Let him come to us
and work 32 days at half the wages; he can buy all those
things for a shade under 14 1/2 cents; they will cost him a
shade under 29 days’ work, and he will have about half a
week’s wages over. Carry it through the year; he would save
nearly a week’s wages every two months, YOUR man
nothing; thus saving five or six weeks’ wages in a year, your
man not a cent. NOW I reckon you understand that ‘high
wages’ and ‘low wages’ are phrases that don’t mean anything
in the world until you find out which of them will BUY the
most!”

It was a crusher.

But, alas! it didn’t crush. No, I had to give it up. What those
people valued was high wages; it didn’t seem to be a matter
of any consequence to them whether the high wages would
buy anything or not. They stood for “protection,” and swore
by it, which was reasonable enough, because interested
parties had gulled them into the notion that it was protection
which had created their high wages. I proved to them that in
a quarter of a century their wages had advanced but 30 per
cent., while the cost of living had gone up 100; and that with
us, in a shorter time, wages had advanced 40 per cent. while
the cost of living had gone steadily down. But it didn’t do any
good. Nothing could unseat their strange beliefs.

Well, I was smarting under a sense of defeat. Undeserved

defeat, but what of that? That didn’t soften the smart any.
And to think of the circumstances! the first statesman of the
age, the capablest man, the best-informed man in the entire
world, the loftiest uncrowned head that had moved through
the clouds of any political firmament for centuries, sitting
here apparently defeated in argument by an ignorant
country blacksmith! And I could see that those others were
sorry for me—which made me blush till I could smell my
whiskers scorching. Put yourself in my place; feel as mean as
I did, as ashamed as I felt—wouldn’t you have struck below
the belt to get even? Yes, you would; it is simply human
nature. Well, that is what I did. I am not trying to justify it;
I’m only saying that I was mad, and anybody would have
done it.
Well, when I make up my mind to hit a man, I don’t plan out
a love-tap; no, that isn’t my way; as long as I’m going to hit
him at all, I’m going to hit him a lifter. And I don’t jump at
him all of a sudden, and risk making a blundering half-way
business of it; no, I get away off yonder to one side, and
work up on him gradually, so that he never suspects that I’m
going to hit him at all; and by and by, all in a flash, he’s flat
on his back, and he can’t tell for the life of him how it all
happened. That is the way I went for brother Dowley. I
started to talking lazy and comfortable, as if I was just
talking to pass the time; and the oldest man in the world
couldn’t have taken the bearings of my starting place and
guessed where I was going to fetch up:

“Boys, there’s a good many curious things about law, and

custom, and usage, and all that sort of thing, when you come
to look at it; yes, and about the drift and progress of human
opinion and movement, too. There are written laws—they
perish; but there are also unwritten laws—THEY are eternal.
Take the un written law of wages: it says they’ve got to
advance, little by little, straight through the centuries. And
notice how it works. We know what wages are now, here and
there and yonder; we strike an average, and say that’s the
wages of to-day. We know what the wages were a hundred
years ago, and what they were two hundred years ago; that’s
as far back as we can get, but it suffices to give us the law of
progress, the measure and rate of the periodical
augmentation; and so, without a document to help us, we
can come pretty close to determining what the wages were
three and four and five hundred years ago. Good, so far. Do
we stop there? No. We stop looking backward; we face
around and apply the law to the future. My friends, I can tell
you what people’s wages are going to be at any date in the
future you want to know, for hundreds and hundreds of
years.”

“What, goodman, what!”

“Yes. In seven hundred years wages will have risen to six

times what they are now, here in your region, and farm
hands will be allowed 3 cents a day, and mechanics 6.”

“I would’t I might die now and live then!” interrupted Smug,

the wheelwright, with a fine avaricious glow in his eye.

“And that isn’t all; they’ll get their board besides—such as it

is: it won’t bloat them. Two hundred and fifty years later—
pay attention now—a mechanic’s wages will be—mind you,
this is law, not guesswork; a mechanic’s wages will then be
twenty cents a day!”

There was a general gasp of awed astonishment, Dickon the

mason murmured, with raised eyes and hands:

“More than three weeks’ pay for one day’s work!”

“Riches!—of a truth, yes, riches!” muttered Marco, his breath

coming quick and short, with excitement.

“Wages will keep on rising, little by little, little by little, as

steadily as a tree grows, and at the end of three hundred and
forty years more there’ll be at least one country where the
mechanic’s average wage will be two hundred cents a day!”

It knocked them absolutely dumb! Not a man of them could

get his breath for upwards of two minutes. Then the coal-
burner said prayerfully:

“Might I but live to see it!”

“It is the income of an earl!” said Smug.

“An earl, say ye?” said Dowley; “ye could say more than that
and speak no lie; there’s no earl in the realm of Bagdemagus
that hath an income like to that. Income of an earl—mf! it’s
the income of an angel!”

“Now, then, that is what is going to happen as regards

wages. In that remote day, that man will earn, with one
week’s work, that bill of goods which it takes you upwards of
fifty weeks to earn now. Some other pretty surprising things
are going to happen, too. Brother Dowley, who is it that
determines, every spring, what the particular wage of each
kind of mechanic, laborer, and servant shall be for that
year?”

“Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town council; but

most of all, the magistrate. Ye may say, in general terms, it
is the magistrate that fixes the wages.”

“Doesn’t ask any of those poor devils to help him fix their
wages for them, does he?”

“Hm! That were an idea! The master that’s to pay him the
money is the one that’s rightly concerned in that matter, ye
will notice “

“Yes—but I thought the other man might have some little

trifle at stake in it, too; and even his wife and children, poor
creatures. The masters are these: nobles, rich men, the
prosperous generally. These few, who do no work, determine
what pay the vast hive shall have who DO work. You see?
They’re a ‘combine’—a trade union, to coin a new phrase—
who band themselves together to force their lowly brother to
take what they choose to give. Thirteen hundred years hence
—so says the unwritten law—the ‘combine’ will be the other
way, and then how these fine people’s posterity will fume and
fret and grit their teeth over the insolent tyranny of trade
unions! Yes, indeed! the magistrate will tranquilly arrange
the wages from now clear away down into the nineteenth
century; and then all of a sudden the wage-earner will
consider that a couple of thousand years or so is enough of
this one-sided sort of thing; and he will rise up and take a
hand in fixing his wages himself. Ah, he will have a long and
bitter account of wrong and humiliation to settle.”

“Do ye believe—”

“That he actually will help to fix his own wages? Yes, indeed.
And he will be strong and able, then.”

“Brave times, brave times, of a truth!” sneered the

prosperous smith.

“Oh,—and there’s another detail. In that day, a master may

hire a man for only just one day, or one week, or one month
at a time, if he wants to.”

“What?”

“It’s true. Moreover, a magistrate won’t be able to force a

man to work for a master a whole year on a stretch whether
the man wants to or not.”

“Will there be no law or sense in that day?”

“Both of them, Dowley. In that day a man will be his own

property, not the property of magistrate and master. And he
can leave town whenever he wants to, if the wages don’t suit
him!—and they can’t put him in the pillory for it.”
“Perdition catch such an age!” shouted Dowley, in strong
indignation. “An age of dogs, an age barren of reverence for
superiors and respect for authority! The pillory—”

“Oh, wait, brother; say no good word for that institution. I

think the pillory ought to be abolished.”

“A most strange idea. Why?”

“Well, I’ll tell you why. Is a man ever put in the pillory for a
capital crime?”

“No.”

“Is it right to condemn a man to a slight punishment for a

small offense and then kill him?”

There was no answer. I had scored my first point! For the

first time, the smith wasn’t up and ready. The company
noticed it. Good effect.

“You don’t answer, brother. You were about to glorify the

pillory a while ago, and shed some pity on a future age that
isn’t going to use it. I think the pillory ought to be abolished.
What usually happens when a poor fellow is put in the pillory
for some little offense that didn’t amount to anything in the
world? The mob try to have some fun with him, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“They begin by clodding him; and they laugh themselves to

pieces to see him try to dodge one clod and get hit with
another?”

“Yes.”
“Then they throw dead cats at him, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, suppose he has a few personal enemies in that

mob and here and there a man or a woman with a secret
grudge against him—and suppose especially that he is
unpopular in the community, for his pride, or his prosperity,
or one thing or another—stones and bricks take the place of
clods and cats presently, don’t they?”

“There is no doubt of it.”

“As a rule he is crippled for life, isn’t he?—jaws broken, teeth

smashed out?—or legs mutilated, gangrened, presently cut
off?—or an eye knocked out, maybe both eyes?”

“It is true, God knoweth it.”

“And if he is unpopular he can depend on dying, right there

in the stocks, can’t he?”

“He surely can! One may not deny it.”

“I take it none of YOU are unpopular—by reason of pride or

insolence, or conspicuous prosperity, or any of those things
that excite envy and malice among the base scum of a
village? You wouldn’t think it much of a risk to take a chance
in the stocks?”

Dowley winced, visibly. I judged he was hit. But he didn’t

betray it by any spoken word. As for the others, they spoke
out plainly, and with strong feeling. They said they had seen
enough of the stocks to know what a man’s chance in them
was, and they would never consent to enter them if they
could compromise on a quick death by hanging.
“Well, to change the subject—for I think I’ve established my
point that the stocks ought to be abolished. I think some of
our laws are pretty unfair. For instance, if I do a thing which
ought to deliver me to the stocks, and you know I did it and
yet keep still and don’t report me, YOU will get the stocks if
anybody informs on you.”

“Ah, but that would serve you but right,” said Dowley, “for
you must inform. So saith the law.”

The others coincided.

“Well, all right, let it go, since you vote me down. But there’s
one thing which certainly isn’t fair. The magistrate fixes a
mechanic’s wage at 1 cent a day, for instance. The law says
that if any master shall venture, even under utmost press of
business, to pay anything over that cent a day, even for a
single day, he shall be both fined and pilloried for it; and
whoever knows he did it and doesn’t inform, they also shall
be fined and pilloried. Now it seems to me unfair, Dowley,
and a deadly peril to all of us, that because you thoughtlessly
confessed, a while ago, that within a week you have paid a
cent and fifteen mil—”

Oh, I tell YOU it was a smasher! You ought to have seen

them to go to pieces, the whole gang. I had just slipped up
on poor smiling and complacent Dowley so nice and easy and
softly, that he never suspected anything was going to happen
till the blow came crashing down and knocked him all to
rags.

A fine effect. In fact, as fine as any I ever produced, with so

little time to work it up in.

But I saw in a moment that I had overdone the thing a little.

I was expecting to scare them, but I wasn’t expecting to
scare them to death. They were mighty near it, though. You
see they had been a whole lifetime learning to appreciate the
pillory; and to have that thing staring them in the face, and
every one of them distinctly at the mercy of me, a stranger,
if I chose to go and report—well, it was awful, and they
couldn’t seem to recover from the shock, they couldn’t seem
to pull themselves together. Pale, shaky, dumb, pitiful? Why,
they weren’t any better than so many dead men. It was very
uncomfortable. Of course, I thought they would appeal to me
to keep mum, and then we would shake hands, and take a
drink all round, and laugh it off, and there an end. But no;
you see I was an unknown person, among a cruelly
oppressed and suspicious people, a people always
accustomed to having advantage taken of their helplessness,
and never expecting just or kind treatment from any but
their own families and very closest intimates. Appeal to me
to be gentle, to be fair, to be generous? Of course, they
wanted to, but they couldn’t dare.
Chapter XXXIV. The Yankee and the
King Sold as Slaves
WELL, what had I better do? Nothing in a hurry, sure. I must
get up a diversion; anything to employ me while I could
think, and while these poor fellows could have a chance to
come to life again. There sat Marco, petrified in the act of
trying to get the hang of his miller-gun—turned to stone,
just in the attitude he was in when my pile-driver fell, the
toy still gripped in his unconscious fingers. So I took it from
him and proposed to explain its mystery. Mystery! a simple
little thing like that; and yet it was mysterious enough, for
that race and that age.

I never saw such an awkward people, with machinery; you

see, they were totally unused to it. The miller-gun was a
little double-barreled tube of toughened glass, with a neat
little trick of a spring to it, which upon pressure would let a
shot escape. But the shot wouldn’t hurt anybody, it would
only drop into your hand. In the gun were two sizes—wee
mustard- seed shot, and another sort that were several times
larger. They were money. The mustard-seed shot represented
milrays, the larger ones mills. So the gun was a purse; and
very handy, too; you could pay out money in the dark with
it, with accuracy; and you could carry it in your mouth; or in
your vest pocket, if you had one. I made them of several
sizes—one size so large that it would carry the equivalent of
a dollar. Using shot for money was a good thing for the
government; the metal cost nothing, and the money couldn’t
be counterfeited, for I was the only person in the kingdom
who knew how to manage a shot tower. “Paying the shot”
soon came to be a common phrase. Yes, and I knew it would
still be passing men’s lips, away down in the nineteenth
century, yet none would suspect how and when it originated.

The king joined us, about this time, mightily refreshed by his
nap, and feeling good. Anything could make me nervous
now, I was so uneasy—for our lives were in danger; and so it
worried me to detect a complacent something in the king’s
eye which seemed to indicate that he had been loading
himself up for a performance of some kind or other;
confound it, why must he go and choose such a time as this?

I was right. He began, straight off, in the most innocently

artful, and transparent, and lubberly way, to lead up to the
subject of agriculture. The cold sweat broke out all over me.
I wanted to whisper in his ear, “Man, we are in awful danger!
every moment is worth a principality till we get back these
men’s confidence; DON’T waste any of this golden time.” But
of course I couldn’t do it. Whisper to him? It would look as if
we were conspiring. So I had to sit there and look calm and
pleasant while the king stood over that dynamite mine and
mooned along about his damned onions and things. At first
the tumult of my own thoughts, summoned by the danger-
signal and swarming to the rescue from every quarter of my
skull, kept up such a hurrah and confusion and fifing and
drumming that I couldn’t take in a word; but presently when
my mob of gathering plans began to crystallize and fall into
position and form line of battle, a sort of order and quiet
ensued and I caught the boom of the king’s batteries, as if
out of remote distance:

“—were not the best way, methinks, albeit it is not to be

denied that authorities differ as concerning this point, some
contending that the onion is but an unwholesome berry when
stricken early from the tree—”

The audience showed signs of life, and sought each other’s

eyes in a surprised and troubled way.

“—whileas others do yet maintain, with much show of

reason, that this is not of necessity the case, instancing that
plums and other like cereals do be always dug in the unripe
state—”

The audience exhibited distinct distress; yes, and also fear.

“—yet are they clearly wholesome, the more especially when

one doth assuage the asperities of their nature by admixture
of the tranquilizing juice of the wayward cabbage—”

The wild light of terror began to glow in these men’s eyes,

and one of them muttered, “These be errors, every one—God
hath surely smitten the mind of this farmer.” I was in
miserable apprehension; I sat upon thorns.

“—and further instancing the known truth that in the case of

animals, the young, which may be called the green fruit of
the creature, is the better, all confessing that when a goat is
ripe, his fur doth heat and sore engame his flesh, the which
defect, taken in connection with his several rancid habits,
and fulsome appetites, and godless attitudes of mind, and
bilious quality of morals—”

They rose and went for him! With a fierce shout, “The one
would betray us, the other is mad! Kill them! Kill them!” they
flung themselves upon us. What joy flamed up in the king’s
eye! He might be lame in agriculture, but this kind of thing
was just in his line. He had been fasting long, he was hungry
for a fight. He hit the blacksmith a crack under the jaw that
lifted him clear off his feet and stretched him flat on his
back. “St. George for Britain!” and he downed the
wheelwright. The mason was big, but I laid him out like
nothing. The three gathered themselves up and came again;
went down again; came again; and kept on repeating this,
with native British pluck, until they were battered to jelly,
reeling with exhaustion, and so blind that they couldn’t tell
us from each other; and yet they kept right on, hammering
away with what might was left in them. Hammering each
other—for we stepped aside and looked on while they rolled,
and struggled, and gouged, and pounded, and bit, with the
strict and wordless attention to business of so many bulldogs.
We looked on without apprehension, for they were fast
getting past ability to go for help against us, and the arena
was far enough from the public road to be safe from
intrusion.

Well, while they were gradually playing out, it suddenly

occurred to me to wonder what had become of Marco. I
looked around; he was nowhere to be seen. Oh, but this was
ominous! I pulled the king’s sleeve, and we glided away and
rushed for the hut. No Marco there, no Phyllis there! They
had gone to the road for help, sure. I told the king to give his
heels wings, and I would explain later. We made good time
across the open ground, and as we darted into the shelter of
the wood I glanced back and saw a mob of excited peasants
swarm into view, with Marco and his wife at their head. They
were making a world of noise, but that couldn’t hurt
anybody; the wood was dense, and as soon as we were well
into its depths we would take to a tree and let them whistle.
Ah, but then came another sound—dogs! Yes, that was quite
another matter. It magnified our contract—we must find
running water.

We tore along at a good gait, and soon left the sounds far
behind and modified to a murmur. We struck a stream and
darted into it. We waded swiftly down it, in the dim forest
light, for as much as three hundred yards, and then came
across an oak with a great bough sticking out over the water.
We climbed up on this bough, and began to work our way
along it to the body of the tree; now we began to hear those
sounds more plainly; so the mob had struck our trail. For a
while the sounds approached pretty fast. And then for
another while they didn’t. No doubt the dogs had found the
place where we had entered the stream, and were now
waltzing up and down the shores trying to pick up the trail
again.

When we were snugly lodged in the tree and curtained with

foliage, the king was satisfied, but I was doubtful. I believed
we could crawl along a branch and get into the next tree,
and I judged it worth while to try. We tried it, and made a
success of it, though the king slipped, at the junction, and
came near failing to connect. We got comfortable lodgment
and satisfactory concealment among the foliage, and then we
had nothing to do but listen to the hunt.

Presently we heard it coming—and coming on the jump, too;

yes, and down both sides of the stream. Louder—louder—
next minute it swelled swiftly up into a roar of shoutings,
barkings, tramplings, and swept by like a cyclone.

“I was afraid that the overhanging branch would suggest

something to them,” said I, “but I don’t mind the
disappointment. Come, my liege, it were well that we make
good use of our time. We’ve flanked them. Dark is coming
on, presently. If we can cross the stream and get a good
start, and borrow a couple of horses from somebody’s pasture
to use for a few hours, we shall be safe enough.”

We started down, and got nearly to the lowest limb, when we

seemed to hear the hunt returning. We stopped to listen.
“Yes,” said I, “they’re baffled, they’ve given it up, they’re on
their way home. We will climb back to our roost again, and
let them go by.”

So we climbed back. The king listened a moment and said:

“They still search—I wit the sign. We did best to abide.”

He was right. He knew more about hunting than I did. The

noise approached steadily, but not with a rush. The king said:

“They reason that we were advantaged by no parlous start of

them, and being on foot are as yet no mighty way from
where we took the water.”

“Yes, sire, that is about it, I am afraid, though I was hoping

better things.”

The noise drew nearer and nearer, and soon the van was
drifting under us, on both sides of the water. A voice called a
halt from the other bank, and said:

“An they were so minded, they could get to yon tree by this
branch that overhangs, and yet not touch ground. Ye will do
well to send a man up it.”

“Marry, that we will do!”

I was obliged to admire my cuteness in foreseeing this very

thing and swapping trees to beat it. But, don’t you know,
there are some things that can beat smartness and
foresight? Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best
swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best
swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid
of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in
his hand be fore; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and
so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he
ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends
him on the spot. Well, how could I, with all my gifts, make
any valuable preparation against a near-sighted, cross-eyed,
pudding-headed clown who would aim himself at the wrong
tree and hit the right one? And that is what he did. He went
for the wrong tree, which was, of course, the right one by
mistake, and up he started.

Matters were serious now. We remained still, and awaited

developments. The peasant toiled his difficult way up. The
king raised himself up and stood; he made a leg ready, and
when the comer’s head arrived in reach of it there was a dull
thud, and down went the man floundering to the ground.
There was a wild outbreak of anger below, and the mob
swarmed in from all around, and there we were treed, and
prisoners. Another man started up; the bridging bough was
detected, and a volunteer started up the tree that furnished
the bridge. The king ordered me to play Horatius and keep
the bridge. For a while the enemy came thick and fast; but
no matter, the head man of each procession always got a
buffet that dislodged him as soon as he came in reach. The
king’s spirits rose, his joy was limitless. He said that if
nothing occurred to mar the prospect we should have a
beautiful night, for on this line of tactics we could hold the
tree against the whole country-side.

However, the mob soon came to that conclusion themselves;

wherefore they called off the assault and began to debate
other plans. They had no weapons, but there were plenty of
stones, and stones might answer. We had no objections. A
stone might possibly penetrate to us once in a while, but it
wasn’t very likely; we were well protected by boughs and
foliage, and were not visible from any good aiming point. If
they would but waste half an hour in stone-throwing, the
dark would come to our help. We were feeling very well
satisfied. We could smile; almost laugh.

But we didn’t; which was just as well, for we should have

been interrupted. Before the stones had been raging through
the leaves and bouncing from the boughs fifteen minutes, we
began to notice a smell. A couple of sniffs of it was enough of
an explanation—it was smoke! Our game was up at last. We
recognized that. When smoke invites you, you have to come.
They raised their pile of dry brush and damp weeds higher
and higher, and when they saw the thick cloud begin to roll
up and smother the tree, they broke out in a storm of joy-
clamors. I got enough breath to say:

“Proceed, my liege; after you is manners.”

The king gasped:

“Follow me down, and then back thyself against one side of

the trunk, and leave me the other. Then will we fight. Let
each pile his dead according to his own fashion and taste.”

Then he descended, barking and coughing, and I followed. I

struck the ground an instant after him; we sprang to our
appointed places, and began to give and take with all our
might. The powwow and racket were prodigious; it was a
tempest of riot and confusion and thick-falling blows.
Suddenly some horsemen tore into the midst of the crowd,
and a voice shouted:

“Hold—or ye are dead men!”

How good it sounded! The owner of the voice bore all the
marks of a gentleman: picturesque and costly raiment, the
aspect of command, a hard countenance, with complexion
and features marred by dissipation. The mob fell humbly
back, like so many spaniels. The gentleman inspected us
critically, then said sharply to the peasants:

“What are ye doing to these people?”

“They be madmen, worshipful sir, that have come wandering

we know not whence, and—”

“Ye know not whence? Do ye pretend ye know them not?”

“Most honored sir, we speak but the truth. They are strangers
and unknown to any in this region; and they be the most
violent and bloodthirsty madmen that ever—”

“Peace! Ye know not what ye say. They are not mad. Who are
ye? And whence are ye? Explain.”

“We are but peaceful strangers, sir,” I said, “and traveling

upon our own concerns. We are from a far country, and
unacquainted here. We have purposed no harm; and yet but
for your brave interference and protection these people
would have killed us. As you have divined, sir, we are not
mad; neither are we violent or bloodthirsty.”

The gentleman turned to his retinue and said calmly: “Lash

me these animals to their kennels!”

The mob vanished in an instant; and after them plunged the

horsemen, laying about them with their whips and pitilessly
riding down such as were witless enough to keep the road
instead of taking to the bush. The shrieks and supplications
presently died away in the distance, and soon the horsemen
began to straggle back. Meantime the gentleman had been
questioning us more closely, but had dug no particulars out
of us. We were lavish of recognition of the service he was
doing us, but we revealed nothing more than that we were
friendless strangers from a far country. When the escort
were all returned, the gentleman said to one of his servants:

“Bring the led-horses and mount these people.”

“Yes, my lord.”

We were placed toward the rear, among the servants. We

traveled pretty fast, and finally drew rein some time after
dark at a roadside inn some ten or twelve miles from the
scene of our troubles. My lord went immediately to his room,
after ordering his supper, and we saw no more of him. At
dawn in the morning we breakfasted and made ready to
start.

My lord’s chief attendant sauntered forward at that moment

with indolent grace, and said:

“Ye have said ye should continue upon this road, which is our
direction likewise; wherefore my lord, the earl Grip, hath
given commandment that ye retain the horses and ride, and
that certain of us ride with ye a twenty mile to a fair town
that hight Cambenet, whenso ye shall be out of peril.”

We could do nothing less than express our thanks and accept

the offer. We jogged along, six in the party, at a moderate
and comfortable gait, and in conversation learned that my
lord Grip was a very great personage in his own region,
which lay a day’s journey beyond Cambenet. We loitered to
such a degree that it was near the middle of the forenoon
when we entered the market square of the town. We
dismounted, and left our thanks once more for my lord, and
then approached a crowd assembled in the center of the
square, to see what might be the object of interest. It was
the remnant of that old peregrinating band of slaves! So they
had been dragging their chains about, all this weary time.
That poor husband was gone, and also many others; and
some few purchases had been added to the gang. The king
was not interested, and wanted to move along, but I was
absorbed, and full of pity. I could not take my eyes away
from these worn and wasted wrecks of humanity. There they
sat, grounded upon the ground, silent, uncomplaining, with
bowed heads, a pathetic sight. And by hideous contrast, a
redundant orator was making a speech to another gathering
not thirty steps away, in fulsome laudation of “our glorious
British liberties!”

I was boiling. I had forgotten I was a plebeian, I was

remembering I was a man. Cost what it might, I would
mount that rostrum and—

Click! the king and I were handcuffed together! Our

companions, those servants, had done it; my lord Grip stood
looking on. The king burst out in a fury, and said:

“What meaneth this ill-mannered jest?”

My lord merely said to his head miscreant, coolly:

“Put up the slaves and sell them!”

Slaves! The word had a new sound—and how unspeakably

awful! The king lifted his manacles and brought them down
with a deadly force; but my lord was out of the way when
they arrived. A dozen of the rascal’s servants sprang forward,
and in a moment we were helpless, with our hands bound
behind us. We so loudly and so earnestly proclaimed
ourselves freemen, that we got the interested attention of
that liberty-mouthing orator and his patriotic crowd, and
they gathered about us and assumed a very determined
attitude. The orator said:

“If, indeed, ye are freemen, ye have nought to fear—the

God-given liberties of Britain are about ye for your shield
and shelter! (Applause.) Ye shall soon see. Bring forth your
proofs.”

“What proofs?”

“Proof that ye are freemen.”

Ah—I remembered! I came to myself; I said nothing. But the

king stormed out:

“Thou’rt insane, man. It were better, and more in reason,

that this thief and scoundrel here prove that we are NOT
freemen.”

You see, he knew his own laws just as other people so often
know the laws; by words, not by effects. They take a
meaning, and get to be very vivid, when you come to apply
them to yourself.

All hands shook their heads and looked disappointed; some

turned away, no longer interested. The orator said—and this
time in the tones of business, not of sentiment:

“An ye do not know your country’s laws, it were time ye

learned them. Ye are strangers to us; ye will not deny that.
Ye may be freemen, we do not deny that; but also ye may be
slaves. The law is clear: it doth not require the claimant to
prove ye are slaves, it requireth you to prove ye are not.”

I said:
“Dear sir, give us only time to send to Astolat; or give us only
time to send to the Valley of Holiness—”

“Peace, good man, these are extraordinary requests, and you

may not hope to have them granted. It would cost much
time, and would unwarrantably inconvenience your master
—”

“Master, idiot!” stormed the king. “I have no master, I myself

am the m—”

“Silence, for God’s sake!”

I got the words out in time to stop the king. We were in

trouble enough already; it could not help us any to give
these people the notion that we were lunatics.

There is no use in stringing out the details. The earl put us

up and sold us at auction. This same infernal law had existed
in our own South in my own time, more than thirteen
hundred years later, and under it hundreds of freemen who
could not prove that they were freemen had been sold into
lifelong slavery without the circumstance making any
particular impression upon me; but the minute law and the
auction block came into my personal experience, a thing
which had been merely improper before became suddenly
hellish. Well, that’s the way we are made.

Yes, we were sold at auction, like swine. In a big town and an

active market we should have brought a good price; but this
place was utterly stagnant and so we sold at a figure which
makes me ashamed, every time I think of it. The King of
England brought seven dollars, and his prime minister nine;
whereas the king was easily worth twelve dollars and I as
easily worth fifteen. But that is the way things always go; if
you force a sale on a dull market, I don’t care what the
property is, you are going to make a poor business of it, and
you can make up your mind to it. If the earl had had wit
enough to—

However, there is no occasion for my working my sympathies

up on his account. Let him go, for the present; I took his
number, so to speak.

The slave-dealer bought us both, and hitched us onto that

long chain of his, and we constituted the rear of his
procession. We took up our line of march and passed out of
Cambenet at noon; and it seemed to me unaccountably
strange and odd that the King of England and his chief
minister, marching manacled and fettered and yoked, in a
slave convoy, could move by all manner of idle men and
women, and under windows where sat the sweet and the
lovely, and yet never attract a curious eye, never provoke a
single remark. Dear, dear, it only shows that there is nothing
diviner about a king than there is about a tramp, after all. He
is just a cheap and hollow artificiality when you don’t know
he is a king. But reveal his quality, and dear me it takes your
very breath away to look at him. I reckon we are all fools.
Born so, no doubt.
Chapter XXXV. A Pitiful Incident
IT’S a world of surprises. The king brooded; this was
natural. What would he brood about, should you say? Why,
about the prodigious nature of his fall, of course—from the
loftiest place in the world to the lowest; from the most
illustrious station in the world to the obscurest; from the
grandest vocation among men to the basest. No, I take my
oath that the thing that graveled him most, to start with,
was not this, but the price he had fetched! He couldn’t seem
to get over that seven dollars. Well, it stunned me so, when I
first found it out, that I couldn’t believe it; it didn’t seem
natural. But as soon as my mental sight cleared and I got a
right focus on it, I saw I was mistaken; it WAS natural. For
this reason: a king is a mere artificiality, and so a king’s
feelings, like the impulses of an automatic doll, are mere
artificialities; but as a man, he is a reality, and his feelings,
as a man, are real, not phantoms. It shames the average
man to be valued below his own estimate of his worth, and
the king certainly wasn’t anything more than an average
man, if he was up that high.

Confound him, he wearied me with arguments to show that

in anything like a fair market he would have fetched twenty-
five dollars, sure—a thing which was plainly nonsense, and
full or the baldest conceit; I wasn’t worth it myself. But it
was tender ground for me to argue on. In fact, I had to
simply shirk argument and do the diplomatic instead. I had
to throw conscience aside, and brazenly concede that he
ought to have brought twenty-five dollars; whereas I was
quite well aware that in all the ages, the world had never
seen a king that was worth half the money, and during the
next thirteen centuries wouldn’t see one that was worth the
fourth of it. Yes, he tired me. If he began to talk about the
crops; or about the recent weather; or about the condition of
politics; or about dogs, or cats, or morals, or theology—no
matter what—I sighed, for I knew what was coming; he was
going to get out of it a palliation of that tiresome seven-
dollar sale. Wherever we halted where there was a crowd, he
would give me a look which said plainly: “if that thing could
be tried over again now, with this kind of folk, you would see
a different result.” Well, when he was first sold, it secretly
tickled me to see him go for seven dollars; but before he was
done with his sweating and worrying I wished he had fetched
a hundred. The thing never got a chance to die, for every
day, at one place or another, possible purchasers looked us
over, and, as often as any other way, their comment on the
king was something like this:

“Here’s a two-dollar-and-a-half chump with a thirty- dollar

style. Pity but style was marketable.”

At last this sort of remark produced an evil result. Our owner

was a practical person and he perceived that this defect must
be mended if he hoped to find a purchaser for the king. So
he went to work to take the style out of his sacred majesty. I
could have given the man some valuable advice, but I didn’t;
you mustn’t volunteer advice to a slave-driver unless you
want to damage the cause you are arguing for. I had found it
a sufficiently difficult job to reduce the king’s style to a
peasant’s style, even when he was a willing and anxious
pupil; now then, to undertake to reduce the king’s style to a
slave’s style—and by force—go to! it was a stately contract.
Never mind the details—it will save me trouble to let you
imagine them. I will only remark that at the end of a week
there was plenty of evidence that lash and club and fist had
done their work well; the king’s body was a sight to see—and
to weep over; but his spirit?—why, it wasn’t even phased.
Even that dull clod of a slave-driver was able to see that
there can be such a thing as a slave who will remain a man
till he dies; whose bones you can break, but whose manhood
you can’t. This man found that from his first effort down to
his latest, he couldn’t ever come within reach of the king, but
the king was ready to plunge for him, and did it. So he gave
up at last, and left the king in possession of his style
unimpaired. The fact is, the king was a good deal more than
a king, he was a man; and when a man is a man, you can’t
knock it out of him.

We had a rough time for a month, tramping to and fro in the

earth, and suffering. And what Englishman was the most
interested in the slavery question by that time? His grace the
king! Yes; from being the most indifferent, he was become
the most interested. He was become the bitterest hater of
the institution I had ever heard talk. And so I ventured to
ask once more a question which I had asked years before
and had gotten such a sharp answer that I had not thought it
prudent to meddle in the matter further. Would he abolish
slavery?

His answer was as sharp as before, but it was music this

time; I shouldn’t ever wish to hear pleasanter, though the
profanity was not good, being awkwardly put together, and
with the crash-word almost in the middle instead of at the
end, where, of course, it ought to have been.

I was ready and willing to get free now; I hadn’t wanted to

get free any sooner. No, I cannot quite say that. I had
wanted to, but I had not been willing to take desperate
chances, and had always dissuaded the king from them. But
now—ah, it was a new atmosphere! Liberty would be worth
any cost that might be put upon it now. I set about a plan,
and was straightway charmed with it. It would require time,
yes, and patience, too, a great deal of both. One could invent
quicker ways, and fully as sure ones; but none that would be
as picturesque as this; none that could be made so dramatic.
And so I was not going to give this one up. It might delay us
months, but no matter, I would carry it out or break
something.

Now and then we had an adventure. One night we were

overtaken by a snow-storm while still a mile from the village
we were making for. Almost instantly we were shut up as in a
fog, the driving snow was so thick. You couldn’t see a thing,
and we were soon lost. The slave-driver lashed us
desperately, for he saw ruin before him, but his lashings only
made matters worse, for they drove us further from the road
and from likelihood of succor. So we had to stop at last and
slump down in the snow where we were. The storm
continued until toward midnight, then ceased. By this time
two of our feebler men and three of our women were dead,
and others past moving and threatened with death. Our
master was nearly beside him self. He stirred up the living,
and made us stand, jump, slap ourselves, to restore our
circulation, and he helped as well as he could with his whip.

Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, and soon

a woman came running and crying; and seeing our group,
she flung herself into our midst and begged for protection. A
mob of people came tearing after her, some with torches, and
they said she was a witch who had caused several cows to
die by a strange disease, and practiced her arts by help of a
devil in the form of a black cat. This poor woman had been
stoned until she hardly looked human, she was so battered
and bloody. The mob wanted to burn her.

Well, now, what do you suppose our master did? When we

closed around this poor creature to shelter her, he saw his
chance. He said, burn her here, or they shouldn’t have her at
all. Imagine that! They were willing. They fastened her to a
post; they brought wood and piled it about her; they applied
the torch while she shrieked and pleaded and strained her
two young daughters to her breast; and our brute, with a
heart solely for business, lashed us into position about the
stake and warmed us into life and commercial value by the
same fire which took away the innocent life of that poor
harmless mother. That was the sort of master we had. I took
HIS number. That snow-storm cost him nine of his flock; and
he was more brutal to us than ever, after that, for many days
together, he was so enraged over his loss.

We had adventures all along. One day we ran into a

procession. And such a procession! All the riffraff of the
kingdom seemed to be comprehended in it; and all drunk at
that. In the van was a cart with a coffin in it, and on the
coffin sat a comely young girl of about eighteen suckling a
baby, which she squeezed to her breast in a passion of love
every little while, and every little while wiped from its face
the tears which her eyes rained down upon it; and always
the foolish little thing smiled up at her, happy and content,
kneading her breast with its dimpled fat hand, which she
patted and fondled right over her breaking heart.

Men and women, boys and girls, trotted along beside or after
the cart, hooting, shouting profane and ribald remarks,
singing snatches of foul song, skipping, dancing—a very
holiday of hellions, a sickening sight. We had struck a suburb
of London, outside the walls, and this was a sample of one
sort of London society. Our master secured a good place for
us near the gallows. A priest was in attendance, and he
helped the girl climb up, and said comforting words to her,
and made the under-sheriff provide a stool for her. Then he
stood there by her on the gallows, and for a moment looked
down upon the mass of upturned faces at his feet, then out
over the solid pavement of heads that stretched away on
every side occupying the vacancies far and near, and then
began to tell the story of the case. And there was pity in his
voice—how seldom a sound that was in that ignorant and
savage land! I remember every detail of what he said, except
the words he said it in; and so I change it into my own
words:

“Law is intended to mete out justice. Sometimes it fails. This

cannot be helped. We can only grieve, and be resigned, and
pray for the soul of him who falls unfairly by the arm of the
law, and that his fellows may be few. A law sends this poor
young thing to death—and it is right. But another law had
placed her where she must commit her crime or starve with
her child—and before God that law is responsible for both her
crime and her ignominious death!

“A little while ago this young thing, this child of eighteen

years, was as happy a wife and mother as any in England;
and her lips were blithe with song, which is the native speech
of glad and innocent hearts. Her young husband was as
happy as she; for he was doing his whole duty, he worked
early and late at his handicraft, his bread was honest bread
well and fairly earned, he was prospering, he was furnishing
shelter and sustenance to his family, he was adding his mite
to the wealth of the nation. By consent of a treacherous law,
instant destruction fell upon this holy home and swept it
away! That young husband was waylaid and impressed, and
sent to sea. The wife knew nothing of it. She sought him
everywhere, she moved the hardest hearts with the
supplications of her tears, the broken eloquence of her
despair. Weeks dragged by, she watching, waiting, hoping,
her mind going slowly to wreck under the burden of her
misery. Little by little all her small possessions went for food.
When she could no longer pay her rent, they turned her out
of doors. She begged, while she had strength; when she was
starving at last, and her milk failing, she stole a piece of
linen cloth of the value of a fourth part of a cent, thinking to
sell it and save her child. But she was seen by the owner of
the cloth. She was put in jail and brought to trial. The man
testified to the facts. A plea was made for her, and her
sorrowful story was told in her behalf. She spoke, too, by
permission, and said she did steal the cloth, but that her
mind was so disordered of late by trouble that when she was
overborne with hunger all acts, criminal or other, swam
meaningless through her brain and she knew nothing rightly,
except that she was so hungry! For a moment all were
touched, and there was disposition to deal mercifully with
her, seeing that she was so young and friendless, and her
case so piteous, and the law that robbed her of her support
to blame as being the first and only cause of her
transgression; but the prosecuting officer replied that
whereas these things were all true, and most pitiful as well,
still there was much small theft in these days, and mistimed
mercy here would be a danger to property—oh, my God, is
there no property in ruined homes, and orphaned babes, and
broken hearts that British law holds precious!—and so he
must require sentence.

“When the judge put on his black cap, the owner of the
stolen linen rose trembling up, his lip quivering, his face as
gray as ashes; and when the awful words came, he cried out,
‘Oh, poor child, poor child, I did not know it was death!’ and
fell as a tree falls. When they lifted him up his reason was
gone; before the sun was set, he had taken his own life. A
kindly man; a man whose heart was right, at bottom; add his
murder to this that is to be now done here; and charge them
both where they belong—to the rulers and the bitter laws of
Britain. The time is come, my child; let me pray over thee—
not FOR thee, dear abused poor heart and innocent, but for
them that be guilty of thy ruin and death, who need it more.”

After his prayer they put the noose around the young girl’s
neck, and they had great trouble to adjust the knot under
her ear, because she was devouring the baby all the time,
wildly kissing it, and snatching it to her face and her breast,
and drenching it with tears, and half moaning, half shrieking
all the while, and the baby crowing, and laughing, and
kicking its feet with delight over what it took for romp and
play. Even the hangman couldn’t stand it, but turned away.
When all was ready the priest gently pulled and tugged and
forced the child out of the mother’s arms, and stepped
quickly out of her reach; but she clasped her hands, and
made a wild spring toward him, with a shriek; but the rope—
and the under-sheriff—held her short. Then she went on her
knees and stretched out her hands and cried:

“One more kiss—oh, my God, one more, one more,—it is the

dying that begs it!”

She got it; she almost smothered the little thing. And when
they got it away again, she cried out:

“Oh, my child, my darling, it will die! It has no home, it has

no father, no friend, no mother—”

“It has them all!” said that good priest. “All these will I be to
it till I die.”

You should have seen her face then! Gratitude? Lord, what
do you want with words to express that? Words are only
painted fire; a look is the fire itself. She gave that look, and
carried it away to the treasury of heaven, where all things
that are divine belong.
Chapter XXXVI. An Encounter in the
Dark
LONDON—to a slave—was a sufficiently interesting place. It
was merely a great big village; and mainly mud and thatch.
The streets were muddy, crooked, unpaved. The populace
was an ever flocking and drifting swarm of rags, and
splendors, of nodding plumes and shining armor. The king
had a palace there; he saw the outside of it. It made him
sigh; yes, and swear a little, in a poor juvenile sixth century
way. We saw knights and grandees whom we knew, but they
didn’t know us in our rags and dirt and raw welts and
bruises, and wouldn’t have recognized us if we had hailed
them, nor stopped to answer, either, it being unlawful to
speak with slaves on a chain. Sandy passed within ten yards
of me on a mule—hunting for me, I imagined. But the thing
which clean broke my heart was something which happened
in front of our old barrack in a square, while we were
enduring the spectacle of a man being boiled to death in oil
for counterfeiting pennies. It was the sight of a newsboy—
and I couldn’t get at him! Still, I had one comfort—here was
proof that Clarence was still alive and banging away. I meant
to be with him before long; the thought was full of cheer.

I had one little glimpse of another thing, one day, which gave
me a great uplift. It was a wire stretching from housetop to
housetop. Telegraph or telephone, sure. I did very much wish
I had a little piece of it. It was just what I needed, in order to
carry out my project of escape. My idea was to get loose
some night, along with the king, then gag and bind our
master, change clothes with him, batter him into the aspect
of a stranger, hitch him to the slave-chain, assume
possession of the property, march to Camelot, and—
But you get my idea; you see what a stunning dramatic
surprise I would wind up with at the palace. It was all
feasible, if I could only get hold of a slender piece of iron
which I could shape into a lock-pick. I could then undo the
lumbering padlocks with which our chains were fastened,
whenever I might choose. But I never had any luck; no such
thing ever happened to fall in my way. However, my chance
came at last. A gentleman who had come twice before to
dicker for me, without result, or indeed any approach to a
result, came again. I was far from expecting ever to belong
to him, for the price asked for me from the time I was first
enslaved was exorbitant, and always provoked either anger
or derision, yet my master stuck stubbornly to it—twenty-
two dollars. He wouldn’t bate a cent. The king was greatly
admired, because of his grand physique, but his kingly style
was against him, and he wasn’t salable; nobody wanted that
kind of a slave. I considered myself safe from parting from
him because of my extravagant price. No, I was not
expecting to ever belong to this gentleman whom I have
spoken of, but he had something which I expected would
belong to me eventually, if he would but visit us often
enough. It was a steel thing with a long pin to it, with which
his long cloth outside garment was fastened together in
front. There were three of them. He had disappointed me
twice, because he did not come quite close enough to me to
make my project entirely safe; but this time I succeeded; I
captured the lower clasp of the three, and when he missed it
he thought he had lost it on the way.

I had a chance to be glad about a minute, then straightway a

chance to be sad again. For when the purchase was about to
fail, as usual, the master suddenly spoke up and said what
would be worded thus—in modern English:
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m tired supporting these two for no
good. Give me twenty-two dollars for this one, and I’ll throw
the other one in.”

The king couldn’t get his breath, he was in such a fury. He

began to choke and gag, and meantime the master and the
gentleman moved away discussing.

“An ye will keep the offer open—”

“’Tis open till the morrow at this hour.”

“Then I will answer you at that time,” said the gentleman,

and disappeared, the master following him.

I had a time of it to cool the king down, but I managed it. I

whispered in his ear, to this effect:

“Your grace WILL go for nothing, but after another fashion.

And so shall I. To-night we shall both be free.”

“Ah! How is that?”

“With this thing which I have stolen, I will unlock these locks
and cast off these chains to-night. When he comes about
nine-thirty to inspect us for the night, we will seize him, gag
him, batter him, and early in the morning we will march out
of this town, proprietors of this caravan of slaves.”

That was as far as I went, but the king was charmed and
satisfied. That evening we waited patiently for our fellow-
slaves to get to sleep and signify it by the usual sign, for you
must not take many chances on those poor fellows if you can
avoid it. It is best to keep your own secrets. No doubt they
fidgeted only about as usual, but it didn’t seem so to me. It
seemed to me that they were going to be forever getting
down to their regular snoring. As the time dragged on I got
nervously afraid we shouldn’t have enough of it left for our
needs; so I made several premature attempts, and merely
delayed things by it; for I couldn’t seem to touch a padlock,
there in the dark, without starting a rattle out of it which
interrupted somebody’s sleep and made him turn over and
wake some more of the gang.

But finally I did get my last iron off, and was a free man once
more. I took a good breath of relief, and reached for the
king’s irons. Too late! in comes the master, with a light in one
hand and his heavy walking-staff in the other. I snuggled
close among the wallow of snorers, to conceal as nearly as
possible that I was naked of irons; and I kept a sharp lookout
and prepared to spring for my man the moment he should
bend over me.

But he didn’t approach. He stopped, gazed absently toward

our dusky mass a minute, evidently thinking about
something else; then set down his light, moved musingly
toward the door, and before a body could imagine what he
was going to do, he was out of the door and had closed it
behind him.

“Quick!” said the king. “Fetch him back!”

Of course, it was the thing to do, and I was up and out in a

moment. But, dear me, there were no lamps in those days,
and it was a dark night. But I glimpsed a dim figure a few
steps away. I darted for it, threw myself upon it, and then
there was a state of things and lively! We fought and scuffled
and struggled, and drew a crowd in no time. They took an
immense interest in the fight and encouraged us all they
could, and, in fact, couldn’t have been pleasanter or more
cordial if it had been their own fight. Then a tremendous row
broke out behind us, and as much as half of our audience left
us, with a rush, to invest some sympathy in that. Lanterns
began to swing in all directions; it was the watch gathering
from far and near. Presently a halberd fell across my back, as
a reminder, and I knew what it meant. I was in custody. So
was my adversary. We were marched off toward prison, one
on each side of the watchman. Here was disaster, here was a
fine scheme gone to sudden destruction! I tried to imagine
what would happen when the master should discover that it
was I who had been fighting him; and what would happen if
they jailed us together in the general apartment for brawlers
and petty law-breakers, as was the custom; and what might
—

Just then my antagonist turned his face around in my

direction, the freckled light from the watchman’s tin lantern
fell on it, and, by George, he was the wrong man!
Chapter XXXVII. An Awful Predicament
SLEEP? It was impossible. It would naturally have been
impossible in that noisome cavern of a jail, with its mangy
crowd of drunken, quarrelsome, and song-singing
rapscallions. But the thing that made sleep all the more a
thing not to be dreamed of, was my racking impatience to get
out of this place and find out the whole size of what might
have happened yonder in the slave-quarters in consequence
of that intolerable miscarriage of mine.

It was a long night, but the morning got around at last. I

made a full and frank explanation to the court. I said I was a
slave, the property of the great Earl Grip, who had arrived
just after dark at the Tabard inn in the village on the other
side of the water, and had stopped there over night, by
compulsion, he being taken deadly sick with a strange and
sudden disorder. I had been ordered to cross to the city in all
haste and bring the best physician; I was doing my best;
naturally I was running with all my might; the night was
dark, I ran against this common person here, who seized me
by the throat and began to pummel me, although I told him
my errand, and implored him, for the sake of the great earl
my master’s mortal peril—

The common person interrupted and said it was a lie; and

was going to explain how I rushed upon him and attacked
him without a word—

“Silence, sirrah!” from the court. “Take him hence and give
him a few stripes whereby to teach him how to treat the
servant of a nobleman after a different fashion another time.
Go!”
Then the court begged my pardon, and hoped I would not fail
to tell his lordship it was in no wise the court’s fault that this
high-handed thing had happened. I said I would make it all
right, and so took my leave. Took it just in time, too; he was
starting to ask me why I didn’t fetch out these facts the
moment I was arrested. I said I would if I had thought of it—
which was true—but that I was so battered by that man that
all my wit was knocked out of me—and so forth and so on,
and got myself away, still mumbling. I didn’t wait for
breakfast. No grass grew under my feet. I was soon at the
slave quarters. Empty—everybody gone! That is, everybody
except one body—the slave-master’s. It lay there all battered
to pulp; and all about were the evidences of a terrific fight.
There was a rude board coffin on a cart at the door, and
workmen, assisted by the police, were thinning a road
through the gaping crowd in order that they might bring it
in.

I picked out a man humble enough in life to condescend to

talk with one so shabby as I, and got his ac count of the
matter.

“There were sixteen slaves here. They rose against their

master in the night, and thou seest how it ended.”

“Yes. How did it begin?”

“There was no witness but the slaves. They said the slave
that was most valuable got free of his bonds and escaped in
some strange way—by magic arts ’twas thought, by reason
that he had no key, and the locks were neither broke nor in
any wise injured. When the master discovered his loss, he
was mad with despair, and threw himself upon his people
with his heavy stick, who resisted and brake his back and in
other and divers ways did give him hurts that brought him
swiftly to his end.”

“This is dreadful. It will go hard with the slaves, no doubt,

upon the trial.”

“Marry, the trial is over.”

“Over!”

“Would they be a week, think you—and the matter so

simple? They were not the half of a quarter of an hour at it.”

“Why, I don’t see how they could determine which were the
guilty ones in so short a time.”

“Which ones? Indeed, they considered not particulars like to

that. They condemned them in a body. Wit ye not the law?—
which men say the Romans left behind them here when they
went—that if one slave killeth his master all the slaves of
that man must die for it.”

“True. I had forgotten. And when will these die?”

“Belike within a four and twenty hours; albeit some say they
will wait a pair of days more, if peradventure they may find
the missing one meantime.”

The missing one! It made me feel uncomfortable.

“Is it likely they will find him?”

“Before the day is spent—yes. They seek him everywhere.

They stand at the gates of the town, with certain of the
slaves who will discover him to them if he cometh, and none
can pass out but he will be first examined.”
“Might one see the place where the rest are confined?”

“The outside of it—yes. The inside of it—but ye will not want

to see that.”

I took the address of that prison for future reference and

then sauntered off. At the first second-hand clothing shop I
came to, up a back street, I got a rough rig suitable for a
common seaman who might be going on a cold voyage, and
bound up my face with a liberal bandage, saying I had a
toothache. This concealed my worst bruises. It was a
transformation. I no longer resembled my former self. Then I
struck out for that wire, found it and followed it to its den. It
was a little room over a butcher’s shop—which meant that
business wasn’t very brisk in the telegraphic line. The young
chap in charge was drowsing at his table. I locked the door
and put the vast key in my bosom. This alarmed the young
fellow, and he was going to make a noise; but I said:

“Save your wind; if you open your mouth you are dead, sure.
Tackle your instrument. Lively, now! Call Camelot.”

“This doth amaze me! How should such as you know aught of
such matters as—”

“Call Camelot! I am a desperate man. Call Camelot, or get

away from the instrument and I will do it myself.”

“What—you?”

“Yes—certainly. Stop gabbling. Call the palace.”

He made the call.

“Now, then, call Clarence.”

“Clarence WHO?”

“Never mind Clarence who. Say you want Clarence; you’ll

get an answer.”

He did so. We waited five nerve-straining minutes—ten

minutes—how long it did seem!—and then came a click that
was as familiar to me as a human voice; for Clarence had
been my own pupil.

“Now, my lad, vacate! They would have known MY touch,

maybe, and so your call was surest; but I’m all right now.”

He vacated the place and cocked his ear to listen—but it

didn’t win. I used a cipher. I didn’t waste any time in
sociabilities with Clarence, but squared away for business,
straight-off—thus:

“The king is here and in danger. We were captured and

brought here as slaves. We should not be able to prove our
identity—and the fact is, I am not in a position to try. Send a
telegram for the palace here which will carry conviction with
it.”

His answer came straight back:

“They don’t know anything about the telegraph; they haven’t

had any experience yet, the line to London is so new. Better
not venture that. They might hang you. Think up something
else.”

Might hang us! Little he knew how closely he was crowding

the facts. I couldn’t think up anything for the moment. Then
an idea struck me, and I started it along:

“Send five hundred picked knights with Launcelot in the

lead; and send them on the jump. Let them enter by the
southwest gate, and look out for the man with a white cloth
around his right arm.”

The answer was prompt:

“They shall start in half an hour.”

“All right, Clarence; now tell this lad here that I’m a friend of
yours and a dead-head; and that he must be discreet and say
nothing about this visit of mine.”

The instrument began to talk to the youth and I hurried

away. I fell to ciphering. In half an hour it would be nine
o’clock. Knights and horses in heavy armor couldn’t travel
very fast. These would make the best time they could, and
now that the ground was in good condition, and no snow or
mud, they would probably make a seven-mile gait; they
would have to change horses a couple of times; they would
arrive about six, or a little after; it would still be plenty light
enough; they would see the white cloth which I should tie
around my right arm, and I would take command. We would
surround that prison and have the king out in no time. It
would be showy and picturesque enough, all things
considered, though I would have preferred noonday, on
account of the more theatrical aspect the thing would have.

Now, then, in order to increase the strings to my bow, I

thought I would look up some of those people whom I had
formerly recognized, and make myself known. That would
help us out of our scrape, without the knights. But I must
proceed cautiously, for it was a risky business. I must get
into sumptuous raiment, and it wouldn’t do to run and jump
into it. No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after
suit of clothes, in shops wide apart, and getting a little finer
article with each change, until I should finally reach silk and
velvet, and be ready for my project. So I started.

But the scheme fell through like scat! The first corner I
turned, I came plump upon one of our slaves, snooping
around with a watchman. I coughed at the moment, and he
gave me a sudden look that bit right into my marrow. I judge
he thought he had heard that cough before. I turned
immediately into a shop and worked along down the counter,
pricing things and watching out of the corner of my eye.
Those people had stopped, and were talking together and
looking in at the door. I made up my mind to get out the back
way, if there was a back way, and I asked the shopwoman if I
could step out there and look for the escaped slave, who was
believed to be in hiding back there somewhere, and said I
was an officer in disguise, and my pard was yonder at the
door with one of the murderers in charge, and would she be
good enough to step there and tell him he needn’t wait, but
had better go at once to the further end of the back alley and
be ready to head him off when I rousted him out.

She was blazing with eagerness to see one of those already

celebrated murderers, and she started on the errand at once.
I slipped out the back way, locked the door behind me, put
the key in my pocket and started off, chuckling to myself and
comfortable.

Well, I had gone and spoiled it again, made another mistake.

A double one, in fact. There were plenty of ways to get rid of
that officer by some simple and plausible device, but no, I
must pick out a picturesque one; it is the crying defect of my
character. And then, I had ordered my procedure upon what
the officer, being human, would naturally do; whereas when
you are least expecting it, a man will now and then go and
do the very thing which it’s not natural for him to do. The
natural thing for the officer to do, in this case, was to follow
straight on my heels; he would find a stout oaken door,
securely locked, between him and me; before he could break
it down, I should be far away and engaged in slipping into a
succession of baffling disguises which would soon get me into
a sort of raiment which was a surer protection from meddling
law-dogs in Britain than any amount of mere innocence and
purity of character. But instead of doing the natural thing,
the officer took me at my word, and followed my instructions.
And so, as I came trotting out of that cul de sac, full of
satisfaction with my own cleverness, he turned the corner
and I walked right into his handcuffs. If I had known it was a
cul de sac—however, there isn’t any excusing a blunder like
that, let it go. Charge it up to profit and loss.

Of course, I was indignant, and swore I had just come ashore

from a long voyage, and all that sort of thing—just to see,
you know, if it would deceive that slave. But it didn’t. He
knew me. Then I reproached him for betraying me. He was
more surprised than hurt. He stretched his eyes wide, and
said:

“What, wouldst have me let thee, of all men, escape and not
hang with us, when thou’rt the very cause of our hanging?
Go to!”

“Go to” was their way of saying “I should smile!” or “I like

that!” Queer talkers, those people.

Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view of the

case, and so I dropped the matter. When you can’t cure a
disaster by argument, what is the use to argue? It isn’t my
way. So I only said:

“You’re not going to be hanged. None of us are.”

Both men laughed, and the slave said:

“Ye have not ranked as a fool—before. You might better keep

your reputation, seeing the strain would not be for long.”

“It will stand it, I reckon. Before to-morrow we shall be out

of prison, and free to go where we will, besides.”

The witty officer lifted at his left ear with his thumb, made a
rasping noise in his throat, and said:

“Out of prison—yes—ye say true. And free likewise to go

where ye will, so ye wander not out of his grace the Devil’s
sultry realm.”

I kept my temper, and said, indifferently:

“Now I suppose you really think we are going to hang within

a day or two.”

“I thought it not many minutes ago, for so the thing was

decided and proclaimed.”

“Ah, then you’ve changed your mind, is that it?”

“Even that. I only thought, then; I know, now.”

I felt sarcastical, so I said:

“Oh, sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell us, then,

what you know.”

“That ye will all be hanged to-day, at mid-afternoon! Oho!

that shot hit home! Lean upon me.”

The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody. My knights

couldn’t arrive in time. They would be as much as three
hours too late. Nothing in the world could save the King of
England; nor me, which was more important. More
important, not merely to me, but to the nation—the only
nation on earth standing ready to blossom into civilization. I
was sick. I said no more, there wasn’t anything to say. I
knew what the man meant; that if the missing slave was
found, the postponement would be revoked, the execution
take place to-day. Well, the missing slave was found.
Chapter XXXVIII. Sir Launcelot and
Knights to the Rescue
NEARING four in the afternoon. The scene was just outside
the walls of London. A cool, comfortable, superb day, with a
brilliant sun; the kind of day to make one want to live, not
die. The multitude was prodigious and far-reaching; and yet
we fifteen poor devils hadn’t a friend in it. There was
something painful in that thought, look at it how you might.
There we sat, on our tall scaffold, the butt of the hate and
mockery of all those enemies. We were being made a holiday
spectacle. They had built a sort of grand stand for the
nobility and gentry, and these were there in full force, with
their ladies. We recognized a good many of them.

The crowd got a brief and unexpected dash of diversion out

of the king. The moment we were freed of our bonds he
sprang up, in his fantastic rags, with face bruised out of all
recognition, and proclaimed himself Arthur, King of Britain,
and denounced the awful penalties of treason upon every
soul there present if hair of his sacred head were touched. It
startled and surprised him to hear them break into a vast
roar of laughter. It wounded his dignity, and he locked
himself up in silence. then, although the crowd begged him
to go on, and tried to provoke him to it by cat-calls, jeers,
and shouts of

“Let him speak! The king! The king! his humble subjects
hunger and thirst for words of wisdom out of the mouth of
their master his Serene and Sacred Raggedness!”

But it went for nothing. He put on all his majesty and sat
under this rain of contempt and insult un moved. He
certainly was great in his way. Absently, I had taken off my
white bandage and wound it about my right arm. When the
crowd noticed this, they began upon me. They said:

“Doubtless this sailor-man is his minister—observe his costly

badge of office!”

I let them go on until they got tired, and then I said:

“Yes, I am his minister, The Boss; and to-morrow you will

hear that from Camelot which—”

I got no further. They drowned me out with joyous derision.

But presently there was silence; for the sheriffs of London, in
their official robes, with their subordinates, began to make a
stir which indicated that business was about to begin. In the
hush which followed, our crime was recited, the death
warrant read, then everybody uncovered while a priest
uttered a prayer.

Then a slave was blindfolded; the hangman unslung his rope.

There lay the smooth road below us, we upon one side of it,
the banked multitude wailing its other side—a good clear
road, and kept free by the police—how good it would be to
see my five hundred horsemen come tearing down it! But no,
it was out of the possibilities. I followed its receding thread
out into the distance—not a horseman on it, or sign of one.

There was a jerk, and the slave hung dangling; dangling and
hideously squirming, for his limbs were not tied.

A second rope was unslung, in a moment another slave was

dangling.

In a minute a third slave was struggling in the air. It was

dreadful. I turned away my head a moment, and when I
turned back I missed the king! They were blindfolding him! I
was paralyzed; I couldn’t move, I was choking, my tongue
was petrified. They finished blindfolding him, they led him
under the rope. I couldn’t shake off that clinging impotence.
But when I saw them put the noose around his neck, then
everything let go in me and I made a spring to the rescue—
and as I made it I shot one more glance abroad—by George!
here they came, a-tilting!—five hundred mailed and belted
knights on bicycles!

The grandest sight that ever was seen. Lord, how the plumes
streamed, how the sun flamed and flashed from the endless
procession of webby wheels!

I waved my right arm as Launcelot swept in—he recognized

my rag—I tore away noose and bandage, and shouted:

“On your knees, every rascal of you, and salute the king!
Who fails shall sup in hell to-night!”
I always use that high style when I’m climaxing an effect.
Well, it was noble to see Launcelot and the boys swarm up
onto that scaffold and heave sheriffs and such overboard.
And it was fine to see that astonished multitude go down on
their knees and beg their lives of the king they had just been
deriding and insulting. And as he stood apart there, receiving
this homage in rags, I thought to myself, well, really there is
something peculiarly grand about the gait and bearing of a
king, after all.

I was immensely satisfied. Take the whole situation all

around, it was one of the gaudiest effects I ever instigated.

And presently up comes Clarence, his own self! and winks,

and says, very modernly:

“Good deal of a surprise, wasn’t it? I knew you’d like it. I’ve
had the boys practicing this long time, privately; and just
hungry for a chance to show off.”
Chapter XXXIX. The Yankee’s Fight
with the Knights
HOME again, at Camelot. A morning or two later I found the
paper, damp from the press, by my plate at the breakfast
table. I turned to the advertising columns, knowing I should
find something of personal interest to me there. It was this:

DE PAR LE ROI.

Know that the great lord and illustrious Kni8ht, SIR

SAGRAMOR LE DESIROUS naving condescended to meet the
King’s Minister, Hank Morgan, the which is surnamed The
Boss, for satisfgction of offence anciently given, these wilL
engage in the lists by Camelot about the fourth hour of the
morning of the sixteenth day of this next succeeding month.
The battle will be a l outrance, sith the said offence was of a
deadly sort, admitting of no comPosition.

DE PAR LE ROI

Clarence’s editorial reference to this affair was to this effect:

It will be observed, by a gl7nce at our advertising columns,

that the community is to be favored with a treat of unusual
interest in the tournament line. The names of the artists are
warrant of good enterTemment. The box-office will be open at
noon of the 13th; admission 3 cents, reserved seatsh 5;
proceeds to go to the hospital fund The royal pair and all the
Court will be present. With these exceptions, and the press
and the clergy, the free list is strictly susPended. Parties are
hereby warned against buying tickets of speculators; they
will not be good at the door. Everybody knows and likes The
Boss, everybody knows and likes Sir Sag.; come, let us give
the lads a good send-off. ReMember, the proceeds go to a
great and free charity, and one whose broad begevolence
stretches out its helping hand, warm with the blood of a lov
ing heart, to all that suffer, regardless of race, creed,
condition or color—the only charity yet established in the
earth which has no politico-religious stop-cock on its
compassion, but says Here flows the stream, let ALL come
and drink! Turn out, all hands! fetch along your dou3hnuts
and your gum-drops and have a good time. Pie for sale on
the grounds, and rocks to crack it with; and ciRcus-lemonade
—three drops of lime juice to a barrel of water. N.B. This is
the first tournament under the new law, whidh allow each
combatant to use any weapon he may prefer. You may want
to make a note of that.

Up to the day set, there was no talk in all Britain of anything

but this combat. All other topics sank into insignificance and
passed out of men’s thoughts and interest. It was not
because a tournament was a great matter, it was not because
Sir Sagramor had found the Holy Grail, for he had not, but
had failed; it was not because the second (official) personage
in the kingdom was one of the duellists; no, all these
features were commonplace. Yet there was abundant reason
for the extraordinary interest which this coming fight was
creating. It was born of the fact that all the nation knew that
this was not to be a duel between mere men, so to speak,
but a duel between two mighty magicians; a duel not of
muscle but of mind, not of human skill but of superhuman
art and craft; a final struggle for supremacy between the two
master en chanters of the age. It was realized that the most
prodigious achievements of the most renowned knights could
not be worthy of comparison with a spectacle like this; they
could be but child’s play, contrasted with this mysterious and
awful battle of the gods. Yes, all the world knew it was going
to be in reality a duel between Merlin and me, a measuring
of his magic powers against mine. It was known that Merlin
had been busy whole days and nights together, imbuing Sir
Sagramor’s arms and armor with supernal powers of offense
and defense, and that he had procured for him from the
spirits of the air a fleecy veil which would render the wearer
invisible to his antagonist while still visible to other men.
Against Sir Sagramor, so weaponed and protected, a
thousand knights could accomplish nothing; against him no
known enchantments could prevail. These facts were sure;
regarding them there was no doubt, no reason for doubt.
There was but one question: might there be still other
enchantments, UNKNOWN to Merlin, which could render Sir
Sagramor’s veil transparent to me, and make his enchanted
mail vulnerable to my weapons? This was the one thing to be
decided in the lists. Until then the world must remain in
suspense.

So the world thought there was a vast matter at stake here,

and the world was right, but it was not the one they had in
their minds. No, a far vaster one was upon the cast of this
die: The life of Knight-Errantry. I was a champion, it was
true, but not the champion of the frivolous black arts, I was
the champion of hard unsentimental common-sense and
reason. I was entering the lists to either destroy knight-
errantry or be its victim.

Vast as the show-grounds were, there were no vacant spaces

in them outside of the lists, at ten o’clock on the morning of
the 16th. The mammoth grand-stand was clothed in flags,
streamers, and rich tapestries, and packed with several acres
of small-fry tributary kings, their suites, and the British
aristocracy; with our own royal gang in the chief place, and
each and every individual a flashing prism of gaudy silks and
velvets—well, I never saw anything to begin with it but a
fight between an Upper Mississippi sunset and the aurora
borealis. The huge camp of beflagged and gay-colored tents
at one end of the lists, with a stiff-standing sentinel at every
door and a shining shield hanging by him for challenge, was
another fine sight. You see, every knight was there who had
any ambition or any caste feeling; for my feeling toward
their order was not much of a secret, and so here was their
chance. If I won my fight with Sir Sagramor, others would
have the right to call me out as long as I might be willing to
respond.

Down at our end there were but two tents; one for me, and
another for my servants. At the appointed hour the king
made a sign, and the heralds, in their tabards, appeared and
made proclamation, naming the combatants and stating the
cause of quarrel. There was a pause, then a ringing bugle-
blast, which was the signal for us to come forth. All the
multitude caught their breath, and an eager curiosity flashed
into every face.

Out from his tent rode great Sir Sagramor, an imposing

tower of iron, stately and rigid, his huge spear standing
upright in its socket and grasped in his strong hand, his
grand horse’s face and breast cased in steel, his body clothed
in rich trappings that almost dragged the ground—oh, a most
noble picture. A great shout went up, of welcome and
admiration.

And then out I came. But I didn’t get any shout. There was a
wondering and eloquent silence for a moment, then a great
wave of laughter began to sweep along that human sea, but
a warning bugle-blast cut its career short. I was in the
simplest and comfortablest of gymnast costumes—flesh-
colored tights from neck to heel, with blue silk puffings about
my loins, and bareheaded. My horse was not above medium
size, but he was alert, slender-limbed, muscled with watch-
springs, and just a greyhound to go. He was a beauty, glossy
as silk, and naked as he was when he was born, except for
bridle and ranger-saddle.

The iron tower and the gorgeous bedquilt came cumbrously

but gracefully pirouetting down the lists, and we tripped
lightly up to meet them. We halted; the tower saluted, I
responded; then we wheeled and rode side by side to the
grand-stand and faced our king and queen, to whom we
made obeisance. The queen exclaimed:

“Alack, Sir Boss, wilt fight naked, and without lance or sword
or—”

But the king checked her and made her understand, with a
polite phrase or two, that this was none of her business. The
bugles rang again; and we separated and rode to the ends of
the lists, and took position. Now old Merlin stepped into view
and cast a dainty web of gossamer threads over Sir
Sagramor which turned him into Hamlet’s ghost; the king
made a sign, the bugles blew, Sir Sagramor laid his great
lance in rest, and the next moment here he came thundering
down the course with his veil flying out behind, and I went
whistling through the air like an arrow to meet him—cocking
my ear the while, as if noting the invisible knight’s position
and progress by hearing, not sight. A chorus of encouraging
shouts burst out for him, and one brave voice flung out a
heartening word for me—said:

“Go it, slim Jim!”

It was an even bet that Clarence had procured that favor for
me—and furnished the language, too. When that formidable
lance-point was within a yard and a half of my breast I
twitched my horse aside without an effort, and the big knight
swept by, scoring a blank. I got plenty of applause that time.
We turned, braced up, and down we came again. Another
blank for the knight, a roar of applause for me. This same
thing was repeated once more; and it fetched such a
whirlwind of applause that Sir Sagramor lost his temper, and
at once changed his tactics and set himself the task of
chasing me down. Why, he hadn’t any show in the world at
that; it was a game of tag, with all the advantage on my
side; I whirled out of his path with ease whenever I chose,
and once I slapped him on the back as I went to the rear.
Finally I took the chase into my own hands; and after that,
turn, or twist, or do what he would, he was never able to get
behind me again; he found himself always in front at the end
of his maneuver. So he gave up that business and retired to
his end of the lists. His temper was clear gone now, and he
forgot himself and flung an insult at me which disposed of
mine. I slipped my lasso from the horn of my saddle, and
grasped the coil in my right hand. This time you should have
seen him come!—it was a business trip, sure; by his gait
there was blood in his eye. I was sitting my horse at ease,
and swinging the great loop of my lasso in wide circles about
my head; the moment he was under way, I started for him;
when the space between us had narrowed to forty feet, I
sent the snaky spirals of the rope a-cleaving through the air,
then darted aside and faced about and brought my trained
animal to a halt with all his feet braced under him for a
surge. The next moment the rope sprang taut and yanked Sir
Sagramor out of the saddle! Great Scott, but there was a
sensation!

Unquestionably, the popular thing in this world is novelty.

These people had never seen anything of that cowboy
business before, and it carried them clear off their feet with
delight. From all around and every where, the shout went
up:

“Encore! encore!”

I wondered where they got the word, but there was no time
to cipher on philological matters, because the whole knight-
errantry hive was just humming now, and my prospect for
trade couldn’t have been better. The moment my lasso was
released and Sir Sagramor had been assisted to his tent, I
hauled in the slack, took my station and began to swing my
loop around my head again. I was sure to have use for it as
soon as they could elect a successor for Sir Sagramor, and
that couldn’t take long where there were so many hungry
candidates. Indeed, they elected one straight off—Sir Hervis
de Revel.

Bzz! Here he came, like a house afire; I dodged: he passed

like a flash, with my horse-hair coils settling around his
neck; a second or so later, Fst! his saddle was empty.

I got another encore; and another, and another, and still

another. When I had snaked five men out, things began to
look serious to the ironclads, and they stopped and consulted
together. As a result, they decided that it was time to waive
etiquette and send their greatest and best against me. To the
astonishment of that little world, I lassoed Sir Lamorak de
Galis, and after him Sir Galahad. So you see there was
simply nothing to be done now, but play their right bower—
bring out the superbest of the superb, the mightiest of the
mighty, the great Sir Launcelot himself!

A proud moment for me? I should think so. Yonder was

Arthur, King of Britain; yonder was Guenever; yes, and
whole tribes of little provincial kings and kinglets; and in the
tented camp yonder, renowned knights from many lands; and
likewise the selectest body known to chivalry, the Knights of
the Table Round, the most illustrious in Christendom; and
biggest fact of all, the very sun of their shining system was
yonder couching his lance, the focal point of forty thousand
adoring eyes; and all by myself, here was I laying for him.
Across my mind flitted the dear image of a certain hello-girl
of West Hartford, and I wished she could see me now. In that
moment, down came the Invincible, with the rush of a
whirlwind—the courtly world rose to its feet and bent forward
—the fateful coils went circling through the air, and before
you could wink I was towing Sir Launcelot across the field on
his back, and kissing my hand to the storm of waving
kerchiefs and the thunder-crash of applause that greeted
me!

Said I to myself, as I coiled my lariat and hung it on my

saddle-horn, and sat there drunk with glory, “The victory is
perfect—no other will venture against me—knight-errantry is
dead.” Now imagine my astonish ment—and everybody else’s,
too—to hear the peculiar bugle-call which announces that
another competitor is about to enter the lists! There was a
mystery here; I couldn’t account for this thing. Next, I
noticed Merlin gliding away from me; and then I noticed that
my lasso was gone! The old sleight-of-hand expert had stolen
it, sure, and slipped it under his robe.

The bugle blew again. I looked, and down came Sagramor

riding again, with his dust brushed off and is veil nicely re-
arranged. I trotted up to meet him, and pretended to find
him by the sound of his horse’s hoofs. He said:

“Thou’rt quick of ear, but it will not save thee from this!” and
he touched the hilt of his great sword . “An ye are not able to
see it, because of the influence of the veil, know that it is no
cumbrous lance, but a sword—and I ween ye will not be able
to avoid it.”

His visor was up; there was death in his smile. I should
never be able to dodge his sword, that was plain. Somebody
was going to die this time. If he got the drop on me, I could
name the corpse. We rode forward together, and saluted the
royalties. This time the king was disturbed. He said:

“Where is thy strange weapon?”

“It is stolen, sire.”

“Hast another at hand?”

“No, sire, I brought only the one.”

Then Merlin mixed in:

“He brought but the one because there was but the one to
bring. There exists none other but that one. It belongeth to
the king of the Demons of the Sea. This man is a pretender,
and ignorant, else he had known that that weapon can be
used in but eight bouts only, and then it vanisheth away to
its home under the sea.”

“Then is he weaponless,” said the king. “Sir Sagramore, ye

will grant him leave to borrow.”

“And I will lend!” said Sir Launcelot, limping up. “He is as

brave a knight of his hands as any that be on live, and he
shall have mine.”

He put his hand on his sword to draw it, but Sir Sagramor
said:
“Stay, it may not be. He shall fight with his own weapons; it
was his privilege to choose them and bring them. If he has
erred, on his head be it.”

“Knight!” said the king. “Thou’rt overwrought with passion; it

disorders thy mind. Wouldst kill a naked man?”

“An he do it, he shall answer it to me,” said Sir Launcelot.

“I will answer it to any he that desireth!” retorted Sir

Sagramor hotly.

Merlin broke in, rubbing his hands and smiling his

lowdownest smile of malicious gratification:

“’Tis well said, right well said! And ’tis enough of parleying,
let my lord the king deliver the battle signal.”

The king had to yield. The bugle made proclamation, and we

turned apart and rode to our stations. There we stood, a
hundred yards apart, facing each other, rigid and motionless,
like horsed statues. And so we remained, in a soundless
hush, as much as a full minute, everybody gazing, nobody
stirring. It seemed as if the king could not take heart to give
the signal. But at last he lifted his hand, the clear note of the
bugle followed, Sir Sagramor’s long blade described a
flashing curve in the air, and it was superb to see him come.
I sat still. On he came. I did not move. People got so excited
that they shouted to me:

“Fly, fly! Save thyself! This is murther!”

I never budged so much as an inch till that thundering

apparition had got within fifteen paces of me; then I
snatched a dragoon revolver out of my holster, there was a
flash and a roar, and the revolver was back in the holster
before anybody could tell what had happened.

Here was a riderless horse plunging by, and yonder lay Sir
Sagramor, stone dead.

The people that ran to him were stricken dumb to find that
the life was actually gone out of the man and no reason for it
visible, no hurt upon his body, nothing like a wound. There
was a hole through the breast of his chain-mail, but they
attached no importance to a little thing like that; and as a
bullet wound there produces but little blood, none came in
sight because of the clothing and swaddlings under the
armor. The body was dragged over to let the king and the
swells look down upon it. They were stupefied with
astonishment naturally. I was requested to come and explain
the miracle. But I remained in my tracks, like a statue, and
said:

“If it is a command, I will come, but my lord the king knows

that I am where the laws of combat require me to remain
while any desire to come against me.”

I waited. Nobody challenged. Then I said:

“If there are any who doubt that this field is well and fairly
won, I do not wait for them to challenge me, I challenge
them.”

“It is a gallant offer,” said the king, “and well beseems you.
Whom will you name first?”

“I name none, I challenge all! Here I stand, and dare the

chivalry of England to come against me—not by individuals,
but in mass!”

“What!” shouted a score of knights.

“You have heard the challenge. Take it, or I proclaim you
recreant knights and vanquished, every one!”

It was a “bluff” you know. At such a time it is sound

judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a
hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty
nobody dares to “call,” and you rake in the chips. But just
this once—well, things looked squally! In just no time, five
hundred knights were scrambling into their saddles, and
before you could wink a widely scattering drove were under
way and clattering down upon me. I snatched both revolvers
from the holsters and began to measure distances and
calculate chances.

Bang! One saddle empty. Bang! another one. Bang—bang,

and I bagged two. Well, it was nip and tuck with us, and I
knew it. If I spent the eleventh shot without convincing these
people, the twelfth man would kill me, sure. And so I never
did feel so happy as I did when my ninth downed its man and
I detected the wavering in the crowd which is premonitory of
panic. An instant lost now could knock out my last chance.
But I didn’t lose it. I raised both revolvers and pointed them
—the halted host stood their ground just about one good
square moment, then broke and fled.

The day was mine. Knight-errantry was a doomed institution.

The march of civilization was begun. How did I feel? Ah, you
never could imagine it.

And Brer Merlin? His stock was flat again. Somehow, every
time the magic of fol-de-rol tried conclusions with the magic
of science, the magic of fol-de-rol got left.
Chapter XL. Three Years Later
WHEN I broke the back of knight-errantry that time, I no
longer felt obliged to work in secret. So, the very next day I
exposed my hidden schools, my mines, and my vast system
of clandestine factories and workshops to an astonished
world. That is to say, I exposed the nineteenth century to the
inspection of the sixth.

Well, it is always a good plan to follow up an advantage

promptly. The knights were temporarily down, but if I would
keep them so I must just simply paralyze them—nothing
short of that would answer. You see, I was “bluffing” that last
time in the field; it would be natural for them to work around
to that conclusion, if I gave them a chance. So I must not
give them time; and I didn’t.

I renewed my challenge, engraved it on brass, posted it up

where any priest could read it to them, and also kept it
standing in the advertising columns of the paper.

I not only renewed it, but added to its proportions. I said,

name the day, and I would take fifty assistants and stand up
against the massed chivalry of the whole earth and destroy it.

I was not bluffing this time. I meant what I said; I could do

what I promised. There wasn’t any way to misunderstand the
language of that challenge. Even the dullest of the chivalry
perceived that this was a plain case of “put up, or shut up.”
They were wise and did the latter. In all the next three years
they gave me no trouble worth mentioning.

Consider the three years sped. Now look around on England.

A happy and prosperous country, and strangely altered.
Schools everywhere, and several colleges; a number of
pretty good newspapers. Even authorship was taking a start;
Sir Dinadan the Humorist was first in the field, with a volume
of gray-headed jokes which I had been familiar with during
thirteen centuries. If he had left out that old rancid one
about the lecturer I wouldn’t have said anything; but I
couldn’t stand that one. I suppressed the book and hanged
the author.

Slavery was dead and gone; all men were equal before the
law; taxation had been equalized. The telegraph, the
telephone, the phonograph, the typewriter, the sewing-
machine, and all the thousand willing and handy servants of
steam and electricity were working their way into favor. We
had a steamboat or two on the Thames, we had steam
warships, and the beginnings of a steam commercial marine;
I was getting ready to send out an expedition to discover
America.

We were building several lines of railway, and our line from

Camelot to London was already finished and in operation. I
was shrewd enough to make all offices connected with the
passenger service places of high and distinguished honor. My
idea was to attract the chivalry and nobility, and make them
useful and keep them out of mischief. The plan worked very
well, the competition for the places was hot. The conductor of
the 4.33 express was a duke; there wasn’t a passenger
conductor on the line below the degree of earl. They were
good men, every one, but they had two defects which I
couldn’t cure, and so had to wink at: they wouldn’t lay aside
their armor, and they would “knock down” fare—I mean rob
the company.

There was hardly a knight in all the land who wasn’t in some
useful employment. They were going from end to end of the
country in all manner of useful missionary capacities; their
penchant for wandering, and their experience in it, made
them altogether the most effective spreaders of civilization
we had. They went clothed in steel and equipped with sword
and lance and battle-axe, and if they couldn’t persuade a
person to try a sewing-machine on the installment plan, or a
melodeon, or a barbed-wire fence, or a prohibition journal,
or any of the other thousand and one things they canvassed
for, they removed him and passed on.

I was very happy. Things were working steadily toward a

secretly longed-for point. You see, I had two schemes in my
head which were the vastest of all my projects. The one was
to overthrow the Catholic Church and set up the Protestant
faith on its ruins—not as an Established Church, but a go-as-
you-please one; and the other project was to get a decree
issued by and by, commanding that upon Arthur’s death
unlimited suffrage should be introduced, and given to men
and women alike—at any rate to all men, wise or unwise,
and to all mothers who at middle age should be found to
know nearly as much as their sons at twenty-one. Arthur
was good for thirty years yet, he being about my own age—
that is to say, forty—and I believed that in that time I could
easily have the active part of the population of that day
ready and eager for an event which should be the first of its
kind in the history of the world—a rounded and complete
governmental revolution without bloodshed. The result to be
a republic. Well, I may as well confess, though I do feel
ashamed when I think of it: I was beginning to have a base
hankering to be its first president myself. Yes, there was
more or less human nature in me; I found that out.

Clarence was with me as concerned the revolution, but in a

modified way. His idea was a republic, with out privileged
orders, but with a hereditary royal family at the head of it
instead of an elective chief magistrate. He believed that no
nation that had ever known the joy of worshiping a royal
family could ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die
of melancholy. I urged that kings were dangerous. He said,
then have cats. He was sure that a royal family of cats would
answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other
royal family, they would know as much, they would have the
same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition
to get up shin dies with other royal cats, they would be
laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be
wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as sound a
divine right as any other royal house, and “Tom VII., or Tom
XI., or Tom XIV. by the grace of God King,” would sound as
well as it would when applied to the ordinary royal tomcat
with tights on. “And as a rule,” said he, in his neat modern
English, “the character of these cats would be considerably
above the character of the average king, and this would be
an immense moral advantage to the nation, for the reason
that a nation always models its morals after its monarch’s.
The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these
graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as
any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would
presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded
nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices
of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and
reverence than the customary human king, and would
certainly get it. The eyes of the whole harried world would
soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system, and
royal butchers would presently begin to disappear; their
subjects would fill the vacancies with catlings from our own
royal house; we should become a factory; we should supply
the thrones of the world; within forty years all Europe would
be governed by cats, and we should furnish the cats. The
reign of universal peace would begin then, to end no more
forever...... Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow—fzt!—wow!”

Hang him, I supposed he was in earnest, and was beginning

to be persuaded by him, until he exploded that cat-howl and
startled me almost out of my clothes. But he never could be
in earnest. He didn’t know what it was. He had pictured a
distinct and perfectly rational and feasible improvement upon
constitutional monarchy, but he was too feather-headed to
know it, or care anything about it, either. I was going to give
him a scolding, but Sandy came flying in at that moment,
wild with terror, and so choked with sobs that for a minute
she could not get her voice. I ran and took her in my arms,
and lavished caresses upon her and said, beseechingly:

“Speak, darling, speak! What is it?”

Her head fell limp upon my bosom, and she gasped, almost
inaudibly:

“Hello-Central!”

“Quick!” I shouted to Clarence; “telephone the king’s

homeopath to come!”

In two minutes I was kneeling by the child’s crib, and Sandy

was dispatching servants here, there, and everywhere, all
over the palace. I took in the situation almost at a glance—
membranous croup! I bent down and whispered:

“Wake up, sweetheart! Hello-Central”

She opened her soft eyes languidly, and made out to say:

“Papa.”
That was a comfort. She was far from dead yet. I sent for
preparations of sulphur, I rousted out the croup-kettle
myself; for I don’t sit down and wait for doctors when Sandy
or the child is sick. I knew how to nurse both of them, and
had had experience. This little chap had lived in my arms a
good part of its small life, and often I could soothe away its
troubles and get it to laugh through the tear-dews on its
eyelashes when even its mother couldn’t.

Sir Launcelot, in his richest armor, came striding along the

great hall now on his way to the stockboard; he was
president of the stock-board, and occupied the Siege
Perilous, which he had bought of Sir Galahad; for the stock-
board consisted of the Knights of the Round Table, and they
used the Round Table for business purposes now. Seats at it
were worth—well, you would never believe the figure, so it is
no use to state it. Sir Launcelot was a bear, and he had put
up a corner in one of the new lines, and was just getting
ready to squeeze the shorts to-day; but what of that? He was
the same old Launcelot, and when he glanced in as he was
passing the door and found out that his pet was sick, that
was enough for him; bulls and bears might fight it out their
own way for all him, he would come right in here and stand
by little Hello Central for all he was worth. And that was
what he did. He shied his helmet into the corner, and in half
a minute he had a new wick in the alcohol lamp and was
firing up on the croup-kettle. By this time Sandy had built a
blanket canopy over the crib, and everything was ready.

Sir Launcelot got up steam, he and I loaded up the kettle

with unslaked lime and carbolic acid, with a touch of lactic
acid added thereto, then filled the thing up with water and
inserted the steam-spout under the canopy. Everything was
ship-shape now, and we sat down on either side of the crib to
stand our watch. Sandy was so grateful and so comforted
that she charged a couple of church-wardens with willow-
bark and sumach-tobacco for us, and told us to smoke as
much as we pleased, it couldn’t get under the canopy, and
she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the land who
had ever seen a cloud blown. Well, there couldn’t be a more
contented or comfortable sight than Sir Launcelot in his
noble armor sitting in gracious serenity at the end of a yard
of snowy church-warden. He was a beautiful man, a lovely
man, and was just intended to make a wife and children
happy. But, of course Guenever—however, it’s no use to cry
over what’s done and can’t be helped.

Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right straight

through, for three days and nights, till the child was out of
danger; then he took her up in his great arms and kissed her,
with his plumes falling about her golden head, then laid her
softly in Sandy’s lap again and took his stately way down the
vast hall, between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and
menials, and so disappeared. And no instinct warned me that
I should never look upon him again in this world! Lord, what
a world of heart-break it is.

The doctors said we must take the child away, if we would

coax her back to health and strength again. And she must
have sea-air. So we took a man-of-war, and a suite of two
hundred and sixty persons, and went cruising about, and
after a fortnight of this we stepped ashore on the French
coast, and the doctors thought it would be a good idea to
make something of a stay there. The little king of that region
offered us his hospitalities, and we were glad to accept. If he
had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we should have
been plenty comfortable enough; even as it was, we made
out very well, in his queer old castle, by the help of comforts
and luxuries from the ship.

At the end of a month I sent the vessel home for fresh

supplies, and for news. We expected her back in three or four
days. She would bring me, along with other news, the result
of a certain experiment which I had been starting. It was a
project of mine to replace the tournament with something
which might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the
chivalry, keep those bucks entertained and out of mischief,
and at the same time preserve the best thing in them, which
was their hardy spirit of emulation. I had had a choice band
of them in private training for some time, and the date was
now arriving for their first public effort.

This experiment was baseball. In order to give the thing

vogue from the start, and place it out of the reach of
criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not capacity. There
wasn’t a knight in either team who wasn’t a sceptered
sovereign. As for material of this sort, there was a glut of it
always around Arthur. You couldn’t throw a brick in any
direction and not cripple a king. Of course, I couldn’t get
these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn’t do that
when they bathed. They consented to differentiate the armor
so that a body could tell one team from the other, but that
was the most they would do. So, one of the teams wore
chain-mail ulsters, and the other wore plate-armor made of
my new Bessemer steel. Their practice in the field was the
most fantastic thing I ever saw. Being ball-proof, they never
skipped out of the way, but stood still and took the result;
when a Bessemer was at the bat and a ball hit him, it would
bound a hundred and fifty yards sometimes. And when a man
was running, and threw himself on his stomach to slide to his
base, it was like an iron-clad coming into port. At first I
appointed men of no rank to act as umpires, but I had to
discontinue that. These people were no easier to please than
other nines. The umpire’s first decision was usually his last;
they broke him in two with a bat, and his friends toted him
home on a shutter. When it was noticed that no umpire ever
survived a game, umpiring got to be unpopular. So I was
obliged to appoint somebody whose rank and lofty position
under the government would protect him.

Here are the names of the nines:

BESSEMERS ULSTERS

KING ARTHUR. EMPEROR LUCIUS. KING LOT OF LOTHIAN.

KING LOGRIS. KING OF NORTHGALIS. KING MARHALT OF
IRELAND. KING MARSIL. KING MORGANORE. KING OF
LITTLE BRITAIN. KING MARK OF CORNWALL. KING LABOR.
KING NENTRES OF GARLOT. KING PELLAM OF LISTENGESE.
KING MELIODAS OF LIONES. KING BAGDEMAGUS. KING OF
THE LAKE. KING TOLLEME LA FEINTES. THE SOWDAN OF
SYRIA.

Umpire—CLARENCE.

The first public game would certainly draw fifty thousand

people; and for solid fun would be worth going around the
world to see. Everything would be favorable; it was balmy
and beautiful spring weather now, and Nature was all
tailored out in her new clothes.
Chapter XLI. The Interdict
HOWEVER, my attention was suddenly snatched from such
matters; our child began to lose ground again, and we had to
go to sitting up with her, her case became so serious. We
couldn’t bear to allow anybody to help in this service, so we
two stood watch-and-watch, day in and day out. Ah, Sandy,
what a right heart she had, how simple, and genuine, and
good she was! She was a flawless wife and mother; and yet I
had married her for no other particular reasons, except that
by the customs of chivalry she was my property until some
knight should win her from me in the field. She had hunted
Britain over for me; had found me at the hanging-bout
outside of London, and had straightway resumed her old
place at my side in the placidest way and as of right. I was a
New Englander, and in my opinion this sort of partnership
would compromise her, sooner or later. She couldn’t see how,
but I cut argument short and we had a wedding.

Now I didn’t know I was drawing a prize, yet that was what I
did draw. Within the twelvemonth I became her worshiper;
and ours was the dearest and perfectest comradeship that
ever was. People talk about beautiful friendships between
two persons of the same sex. What is the best of that sort, as
compared with the friendship of man and wife, where the
best impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? There
is no place for comparison between the two friendships; the
one is earthly, the other divine.

In my dreams, along at first, I still wandered thirteen

centuries away, and my unsatisfied spirit went calling and
harking all up and down the unreplying vacancies of a
vanished world. Many a time Sandy heard that imploring cry
come from my lips in my sleep. With a grand magnanimity
she saddled that cry of mine upon our child, conceiving it to
be the name of some lost darling of mine. It touched me to
tears, and it also nearly knocked me off my feet, too, when
she smiled up in my face for an earned reward, and played
her quaint and pretty surprise upon me:

“The name of one who was dear to thee is here preserved,

here made holy, and the music of it will abide alway in our
ears. Now thou’lt kiss me, as knowing the name I have given
the child.”

But I didn’t know it, all the same. I hadn’t an idea in the
world; but it would have been cruel to confess it and spoil
her pretty game; so I never let on, but said:

“Yes, I know, sweetheart—how dear and good it is of you,

too! But I want to hear these lips of yours, which are also
mine, utter it first—then its music will be perfect.”

Pleased to the marrow, she murmured:

“Hello-Central!”

I didn’t laugh—I am always thankful for that—but the strain

ruptured every cartilage in me, and for weeks afterward I
could hear my bones clack when I walked. She never found
out her mistake. The first time she heard that form of salute
used at the telephone she was surprised, and not pleased;
but I told her I had given order for it: that henceforth and
forever the telephone must always be invoked with that
reverent formality, in perpetual honor and remembrance of
my lost friend and her small namesake. This was not true.
But it answered.
Well, during two weeks and a half we watched by the crib,
and in our deep solicitude we were unconscious of any world
outside of that sick-room. Then our reward came: the center
of the universe turned the corner and began to mend.
Grateful? It isn’t the term. There ISN’T any term for it. You
know that yourself, if you’ve watched your child through the
Valley of the Shadow and seen it come back to life and sweep
night out of the earth with one all-illuminating smile that
you could cover with your hand.

Why, we were back in this world in one instant! Then we

looked the same startled thought into each other’s eyes at
the same moment; more than two weeks gone, and that ship
not back yet!

In another minute I appeared in the presence of my train.

They had been steeped in troubled bodings all this time—
their faces showed it. I called an escort and we galloped five
miles to a hilltop overlooking the sea. Where was my great
commerce that so lately had made these glistening expanses
populous and beautiful with its white-winged flocks?
Vanished, every one! Not a sail, from verge to verge, not a
smoke-bank—just a dead and empty solitude, in place of all
that brisk and breezy life.

I went swiftly back, saying not a word to anybody. I told

Sandy this ghastly news. We could imagine no explanation
that would begin to explain. Had there been an invasion? an
earthquake? a pestilence? Had the nation been swept out of
existence? But guessing was profitless. I must go—at once. I
borrowed the king’s navy—a “ship” no bigger than a steam
launch—and was soon ready.

The parting—ah, yes, that was hard. As I was devouring the

child with last kisses, it brisked up and jabbered out its
vocabulary!—the first time in more than two weeks, and it
made fools of us for joy. The darling mispronunciations of
childhood!—dear me, there’s no music that can touch it; and
how one grieves when it wastes away and dissolves into
correct ness, knowing it will never visit his bereaved ear
again. Well, how good it was to be able to carry that gracious
memory away with me!

I approached England the next morning, with the wide

highway of salt water all to myself. There were ships in the
harbor, at Dover, but they were naked as to sails, and there
was no sign of life about them. It was Sunday; yet at
Canterbury the streets were empty; strangest of all, there
was not even a priest in sight, and no stroke of a bell fell
upon my ear. The mournfulness of death was everywhere. I
couldn’t understand it. At last, in the further edge of that
town I saw a small funeral procession—just a family and a
few friends following a coffin—no priest; a funeral without
bell, book, or candle; there was a church there close at hand,
but they passed it by weeping, and did not enter it; I glanced
up at the belfry, and there hung the bell, shrouded in black,
and its tongue tied back. Now I knew! Now I understood the
stupendous calamity that had overtaken England. Invasion?
Invasion is a triviality to it. It was the interdict!

I asked no questions; I didn’t need to ask any. The Church

had struck; the thing for me to do was to get into a disguise,
and go warily. One of my servants gave me a suit of clothes,
and when we were safe beyond the town I put them on, and
from that time I traveled alone; I could not risk the
embarrassment of company.

A miserable journey. A desolate silence everywhere. Even in

London itself. Traffic had ceased; men did not talk or laugh,
or go in groups, or even in couples; they moved aimlessly
about, each man by himself, with his head down, and woe
and terror at his heart. The Tower showed recent war-scars.
Verily, much had been happening.

Of course, I meant to take the train for Camelot. Train! Why,

the station was as vacant as a cavern. I moved on. The
journey to Camelot was a repetition of what I had already
seen. The Monday and the Tuesday differed in no way from
the Sunday. I arrived far in the night. From being the best
electric- lighted town in the kingdom and the most like a
recumbent sun of anything you ever saw, it was be come
simply a blot—a blot upon darkness—that is to say, it was
darker and solider than the rest of the darkness, and so you
could see it a little better; it made me feel as if maybe it was
symbolical—a sort of sign that the Church was going to keep
the upper hand now, and snuff out all my beautiful
civilization just like that. I found no life stirring in the
somber streets. I groped my way with a heavy heart. The
vast castle loomed black upon the hilltop, not a spark visible
about it. The drawbridge was down, the great gate stood
wide, I entered without challenge, my own heels making the
only sound I heard—and it was sepulchral enough, in those
huge vacant courts.
Chapter XLII. War!
I FOUND Clarence alone in his quarters, drowned in
melancholy; and in place of the electric light, he had
reinstituted the ancient rag-lamp, and sat there in a grisly
twilight with all curtains drawn tight. He sprang up and
rushed for me eagerly, saying:

“Oh, it’s worth a billion milrays to look upon a live person

again!”

He knew me as easily as if I hadn’t been disguised at all.

Which frightened me; one may easily believe that.

“Quick, now, tell me the meaning of this fearful disaster,” I

said. “How did it come about?”

“Well, if there hadn’t been any Queen Guenever, it wouldn’t

have come so early; but it would have come, anyway. It
would have come on your own account by and by; by luck, it
happened to come on the queen’s.”

“And Sir Launcelot’s?”

“Just so.”

“Give me the details.”

“I reckon you will grant that during some years there has
been only one pair of eyes in these kingdoms that has not
been looking steadily askance at the queen and Sir Launcelot
—”

“Yes, King Arthur’s.”

“—and only one heart that was without suspicion—”

“Yes—the king’s; a heart that isn’t capable of thinking evil of

a friend.”

“Well, the king might have gone on, still happy and
unsuspecting, to the end of his days, but for one of your
modern improvements—the stock-board. When you left,
three miles of the London, Canterbury and Dover were ready
for the rails, and also ready and ripe for manipulation in the
stock-market. It was wildcat, and everybody knew it. The
stock was for sale at a give-away. What does Sir Launcelot
do, but—”

“Yes, I know; he quietly picked up nearly all of it for a song;

then he bought about twice as much more, deliverable upon
call; and he was about to call when I left.”

“Very well, he did call. The boys couldn’t deliver. Oh, he had
them—and he just settled his grip and squeezed them. They
were laughing in their sleeves over their smartness in selling
stock to him at 15 and 16 and along there that wasn’t worth
10. Well, when they had laughed long enough on that side of
their mouths, they rested-up that side by shifting the laugh
to the other side. That was when they compromised with the
Invincible at 283!”

“Good land!”

“He skinned them alive, and they deserved it—anyway, the

whole kingdom rejoiced. Well, among the flayed were Sir
Agravaine and Sir Mordred, nephews to the king. End of the
first act. Act second, scene first, an apartment in Carlisle
castle, where the court had gone for a few days’ hunting.
Persons present, the whole tribe of the king’s nephews.
Mordred and Agravaine propose to call the guileless Arthur’s
attention to Guenever and Sir Launcelot. Sir Gawaine, Sir
Gareth, and Sir Gaheris will have nothing to do with it. A
dispute ensues, with loud talk; in the midst of it enter the
king. Mordred and Agravaine spring their devastating tale
upon him. TABLEAU. A trap is laid for Launcelot, by the king’s
command, and Sir Launcelot walks into it. He made it
sufficiently uncomfortable for the ambushed witnesses—to
wit, Mordred, Agravaine, and twelve knights of lesser rank,
for he killed every one of them but Mordred; but of course
that couldn’t straighten matters between Launcelot and the
king, and didn’t.”

“Oh, dear, only one thing could result—I see that. War, and
the knights of the realm divided into a king’s party and a Sir
Launcelot’s party.”

“Yes—that was the way of it. The king sent the queen to the
stake, proposing to purify her with fire. Launcelot and his
knights rescued her, and in doing it slew certain good old
friends of yours and mine—in fact, some of the best we ever
had; to wit, Sir Belias le Orgulous, Sir Segwarides, Sir Griflet
le Fils de Dieu, Sir Brandiles, Sir Aglovale—”

“Oh, you tear out my heartstrings.”

“—wait, I’m not done yet—Sir Tor, Sir Gauter, Sir Gillimer—”

“The very best man in my subordinate nine. What a handy

right-fielder he was!”

“—Sir Reynold’s three brothers, Sir Damus, Sir Priamus, Sir

Kay the Stranger—”

“My peerless short-stop! I’ve seen him catch a daisy-cutter in

his teeth. Come, I can’t stand this!”

“—Sir Driant, Sir Lambegus, Sir Herminde, Sir Pertilope, Sir

Perimones, and—whom do you think?”

“Rush! Go on.”

“Sir Gaheris, and Sir Gareth—both!”

“Oh, incredible! Their love for Launcelot was indestructible.”

“Well, it was an accident. They were simply onlookers; they

were unarmed, and were merely there to witness the queen’s
punishment. Sir Launcelot smote down whoever came in the
way of his blind fury, and he killed these without noticing
who they were. Here is an instantaneous photograph one of
our boys got of the battle; it’s for sale on every news-stand.
There—the figures nearest the queen are Sir Launcelot with
his sword up, and Sir Gareth gasping his latest breath. You
can catch the agony in the queen’s face through the curling
smoke. It’s a rattling battle-picture.”

“Indeed, it is. We must take good care of it; its historical

value is incalculable. Go on.”

“Well, the rest of the tale is just war, pure and simple.
Launcelot retreated to his town and castle of Joyous Gard,
and gathered there a great following of knights. The king,
with a great host, went there, and there was desperate
fighting during several days, and, as a result, all the plain
around was paved with corpses and cast-iron. Then the
Church patched up a peace between Arthur and Launcelot
and the queen and everybody—everybody but Sir Gawaine.
He was bitter about the slaying of his brothers, Gareth and
Gaheris, and would not be appeased. He notified Launcelot to
get him thence, and make swift preparation, and look to be
soon attacked. So Launcelot sailed to his Duchy of Guienne
with his following, and Gawaine soon followed with an army,
and he beguiled Arthur to go with him. Arthur left the
kingdom in Sir Mordred’s hands until you should return—”

“Ah—a king’s customary wisdom!”

“Yes. Sir Mordred set himself at once to work to make his

kingship permanent. He was going to marry Guenever, as a
first move; but she fled and shut herself up in the Tower of
London. Mordred attacked; the Bishop of Canterbury dropped
down on him with the Interdict. The king returned; Mordred
fought him at Dover, at Canterbury, and again at Barham
Down. Then there was talk of peace and a composition.
Terms, Mordred to have Cornwall and Kent during Arthur’s
life, and the whole kingdom afterward.”

“Well, upon my word! My dream of a republic to be a dream,

and so remain.”

“Yes. The two armies lay near Salisbury. Gawaine—Gawaine’s

head is at Dover Castle, he fell in the fight there—Gawaine
appeared to Arthur in a dream, at least his ghost did, and
warned him to refrain from conflict for a month, let the delay
cost what it might. But battle was precipitated by an
accident. Arthur had given order that if a sword was raised
during the consultation over the proposed treaty with
Mordred, sound the trumpet and fall on! for he had no
confidence in Mordred. Mordred had given a similar order to
HIS people. Well, by and by an adder bit a knight’s heel; the
knight forgot all about the order, and made a slash at the
adder with his sword. Inside of half a minute those two
prodigious hosts came together with a crash! They butchered
away all day. Then the king—however, we have started
something fresh since you left—our paper has.”

“No? What is that?”

“War correspondence!”

“Why, that’s good.”

“Yes, the paper was booming right along, for the Interdict
made no impression, got no grip, while the war lasted. I had
war correspondents with both armies. I will finish that battle
by reading you what one of the boys says:

Then the king looked about him, and then was he ware of all
his host and of all his good knights were left no more on live
but two knights, that was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his
brother Sir Bedivere: and they were full sore wounded. Jesu
mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights
becomen? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day. For
now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end. But would to God
that I wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath
caused all this mischief. Then was King Arthur ware where
Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of
dead men. Now give me my spear, said Arthur unto Sir
Lucan, for yonder I have espied the traitor that all this woe
hath wrought. Sir, let him be, said Sir Lucan, for he is
unhappy; and if ye pass this unhappy day, ye shall be right
well revenged upon him. Good lord, remember ye of your
night’s dream, and what the spirit of Sir Gawaine told you
this night, yet God of his great goodness hath preserved you
hitherto. Therefore, for God’s sake, my lord, leave off by this.
For blessed be God ye have won the field: for here we be
three on live, and with Sir Mordred is none on live. And if ye
leave off now, this wicked day of destiny is past. Tide me
death, betide me life, saith the king, now I see him yonder
alone, he shall never escape mine hands, for at a better avail
shall I never have him. God speed you well, said Sir
Bedivere. Then the king gat his spear in both his hands, and
ran toward Sir Mordred crying, Traitor, now is thy death day
come. And when Sir Mordred heard Sir Arthur, he ran until
him with his sword drawn in his hand. And then King Arthur
smote Sir Mordred under the shield, with a foin of his spear
throughout the body more than a fathom. And when Sir
Mordred felt that he had his death’s wound, he thrust
himself, with the might that he had, up to the butt of King
Arthur’s spear. And right so he smote his father Arthur with
his sword holden in both his hands, on the side of the head,
that the sword pierced the helmet and the brain-pan, and
therewithal Sir Mordred fell stark dead to the earth. And the
noble Arthur fell in a swoon to the earth, and there he
swooned oft-times

“That is a good piece of war correspondence, Clarence; you

are a first-rate newspaper man. Well—is the king all right?”
Did he get well?”

“Poor soul, no. He is dead.”

I was utterly stunned; it had not seemed to me that any

wound could be mortal to him.

“And the queen, Clarence?”

“She is a nun, in Almesbury.”

“What changes! and in such a short while. It is inconceivable.

What next, I wonder?”

“I can tell you what next.”

“Well?”
“Stake our lives and stand by them!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The Church is master now. The Interdict included you with

Mordred; it is not to be removed while you remain alive. The
clans are gathering. The Church has gathered all the knights
that are left alive, and as soon as you are discovered we
shall have business on our hands.”

“Stuff! With our deadly scientific war-material; with our

hosts of trained—”

“Save your breath—we haven’t sixty faithful left!”

“What are you saying? Our schools, our colleges, our vast
workshops, our—”

“When those knights come, those establishments will empty

themselves and go over to the enemy. Did you think you had
educated the superstition out of those people?”

“I certainly did think it.”

“Well, then, you may unthink it. They stood every strain
easily—until the Interdict. Since then, they merely put on a
bold outside—at heart they are quaking. Make up your mind
to it—when the armies come, the mask will fall.”

“It’s hard news. We are lost. They will turn our own science
against us.”

“No they won’t.”

“Why?”
“Because I and a handful of the faithful have blocked that
game. I’ll tell you what I’ve done, and what moved me to it.
Smart as you are, the Church was smarter. It was the Church
that sent you cruising—through her servants, the doctors.”

“Clarence!”

“It is the truth. I know it. Every officer of your ship was the
Church’s picked servant, and so was every man of the crew.”

“Oh, come!”

“It is just as I tell you. I did not find out these things at once,
but I found them out finally. Did you send me verbal
information, by the commander of the ship, to the effect that
upon his return to you, with supplies, you were going to
leave Cadiz—”

“Cadiz! I haven’t been at Cadiz at all!”

“—going to leave Cadiz and cruise in distant seas indefinitely,

for the health of your family? Did you send me that word?”

“Of course not. I would have written, wouldn’t I?”

“Naturally. I was troubled and suspicious. When the

commander sailed again I managed to ship a spy with him. I
have never heard of vessel or spy since. I gave myself two
weeks to hear from you in. Then I resolved to send a ship to
Cadiz. There was a reason why I didn’t.”

“What was that?”

“Our navy had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared! Also,

as suddenly and as mysteriously, the railway and telegraph
and telephone service ceased, the men all deserted, poles
were cut down, the Church laid a ban upon the electric light!
I had to be up and doing—and straight off. Your life was safe
—nobody in these kingdoms but Merlin would venture to
touch such a magician as you without ten thousand men at
his back—I had nothing to think of but how to put
preparations in the best trim against your coming. I felt safe
myself—nobody would be anxious to touch a pet of yours. So
this is what I did. From our various works I selected all the
men—boys I mean—whose faithfulness under whatsoever
pressure I could swear to, and I called them together secretly
and gave them their instructions. There are fifty-two of
them; none younger than fourteen, and none above
seventeen years old.”

“Why did you select boys?”

“Because all the others were born in an atmosphere of

superstition and reared in it. It is in their blood and bones.
We imagined we had educated it out of them; they thought
so, too; the Interdict woke them up like a thunderclap! It
revealed them to themselves, and it revealed them to me,
too. With boys it was different. Such as have been under our
training from seven to ten years have had no acquaintance
with the Church’s terrors, and it was among these that I
found my fifty-two. As a next move, I paid a private visit to
that old cave of Merlin’s—not the small one—the big one—”

“Yes, the one where we secretly established our first great

electric plant when I was projecting a miracle.”

“Just so. And as that miracle hadn’t become necessary then,

I thought it might be a good idea to utilize the plant now.
I’ve provisioned the cave for a siege—”

“A good idea, a first-rate idea.”

“I think so. I placed four of my boys there as a guard—inside,
and out of sight. Nobody was to be hurt—while outside; but
any attempt to enter—well, we said just let anybody try it!
Then I went out into the hills and uncovered and cut the
secret wires which connected your bedroom with the wires
that go to the dynamite deposits under all our vast factories,
mills, workshops, magazines, etc., and about midnight I and
my boys turned out and connected that wire with the cave,
and nobody but you and I suspects where the other end of it
goes to. We laid it under ground, of course, and it was all
finished in a couple of hours or so. We sha’n’t have to leave
our fortress now when we want to blow up our civilization.”

“It was the right move—and the natural one; military

necessity, in the changed condition of things. Well, what
changes HAVE come! We expected to be besieged in the
palace some time or other, but—how ever, go on.”

“Next, we built a wire fence.”

“Wire fence?”

“Yes. You dropped the hint of it yourself, two or three years

ago.”

“Oh, I remember—the time the Church tried her strength

against us the first time, and presently thought it wise to
wait for a hopefuler season. Well, how have you arranged
the fence?”

“I start twelve immensely strong wires—naked, not insulated

—from a big dynamo in the cave—dynamo with no brushes
except a positive and a negative one—”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“The wires go out from the cave and fence in a circle of level
ground a hundred yards in diameter; they make twelve
independent fences, ten feet apart—that is to say, twelve
circles within circles—and their ends come into the cave
again.”

“Right; go on.”

“The fences are fastened to heavy oaken posts only three

feet apart, and these posts are sunk five feet in the ground.”

“That is good and strong.”

“Yes. The wires have no ground-connection out side of the

cave. They go out from the positive brush of the dynamo;
there is a ground-connection through the negative brush;
the other ends of the wire return to the cave, and each is
grounded independently.”

“Nono, that won’t do!”

“Why?”

“It’s too expensive—uses up force for nothing. You don’t want

any ground-connection except the one through the negative
brush. The other end of every wire must be brought back
into the cave and fastened independently, and WITHOUT any
ground-connection. Now, then, observe the economy of it. A
cavalry charge hurls itself against the fence; you are using
no power, you are spending no money, for there is only one
ground-connection till those horses come against the wire;
the moment they touch it they form a con nection with the
negative brush THROUGH THE GROUND, and drop dead.
Don’t you see?—you are using no energy until it is needed;
your lightning is there, and ready, like the load in a gun; but
it isn’t costing you a cent till you touch it off. Oh, yes, the
single ground-connection—”

“Of course! I don’t know how I overlooked that. It’s not only
cheaper, but it’s more effectual than the other way, for if
wires break or get tangled, no harm is done.

“No, especially if we have a tell-tale in the cave and

disconnect the broken wire. Well, go on. The gatlings?”

“Yes—that’s arranged. In the center of the inner circle, on a

spacious platform six feet high, I’ve grouped a battery of
thirteen gatling guns, and pro vided plenty of ammunition.”

“That’s it. They command every approach, and when the

Church’s knights arrive, there’s going to be music. The brow
of the precipice over the cave—”

“I’ve got a wire fence there, and a gatling. They won’t drop
any rocks down on us.”

“Well, and the glass-cylinder dynamite torpedoes?”

“That’s attended to. It’s the prettiest garden that was ever
planted. It’s a belt forty feet wide, and goes around the outer
fence—distance between it and the fence one hundred yards
—kind of neutral ground that space is. There isn’t a single
square yard of that whole belt but is equipped with a
torpedo. We laid them on the surface of the ground, and
sprinkled a layer of sand over them. It’s an innocent looking
garden, but you let a man start in to hoe it once, and you’ll
see.”

“You tested the torpedoes?”

“Well, I was going to, but—”

“But what? Why, it’s an immense oversight not to apply a—”

“Test? Yes, I know; but they’re all right; I laid a few in the
public road beyond our lines and they’ve been tested.”

“Oh, that alters the case. Who did it?”

“A Church committee.”

“How kind!”

“Yes. They came to command us to make submission . You

see they didn’t really come to test the torpedoes; that was
merely an incident.”

“Did the committee make a report?”

“Yes, they made one. You could have heard it a mile.”

“Unanimous?”

“That was the nature of it. After that I put up some signs, for
the protection of future committees, and we have had no
intruders since.”

“Clarence, you’ve done a world of work, and done it

perfectly.”

“We had plenty of time for it; there wasn’t any occasion for
hurry.”

We sat silent awhile, thinking. Then my mind was made up,

and I said:

“Yes, everything is ready; everything is shipshape, no detail

is wanting. I know what to do now.”
“So do I; sit down and wait.”

“No, sir! rise up and strike!”

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes, indeed! The defensive isn’t in my line, and the offensive

is. That is, when I hold a fair hand—two-thirds as good a
hand as the enemy. Oh, yes, we’ll rise up and strike; that’s
our game.”

“ A hundred to one you are right. When does the

performance begin?”

“Now! We’ll proclaim the Republic.”

“Well, that will precipitate things, sure enough!”

“It will make them buzz, I tell you! England will be a hornets’
nest before noon to-morrow, if the Church’s hand hasn’t lost
its cunning—and we know it hasn’t. Now you write and I’ll
dictate thus:

“PROCLAMATION

—-

“BE IT KNOWN UNTO ALL. Whereas the king having died

and left no heir, it becomes my duty to continue the
executive authority vested in me, until a government shall
have been created and set in motion. The monarchy has
lapsed, it no longer exists. By consequence, all political
power has reverted to its original source, the people of the
nation. With the monarchy, its several adjuncts died also;
wherefore there is no longer a nobility, no longer a privileged
class, no longer an Established Church; all men are become
exactly equal; they are upon one common level, and religion
is free. A REPUBLIC IS HEREBY PROCLAIMED, as being
the natural estate of a nation when other authority has
ceased. It is the duty of the British people to meet together
immediately, and by their votes elect representatives and
deliver into their hands the government.”

I signed it “The Boss,” and dated it from Merlin’s Cave.

Clarence said—

“Why, that tells where we are, and invites them to call right
away.”

“That is the idea. We strike—by the Proclamation—then it’s

their innings. Now have the thing set up and printed and
posted, right off; that is, give the order; then, if you’ve got a
couple of bicycles handy at the foot of the hill, ho for Merlin’s
Cave!”

“I shall be ready in ten minutes. What a cyclone there is

going to be to-morrow when this piece of paper gets to
work!... It’s a pleasant old palace, this is; I wonder if we shall
ever again—but never mind about that.”
Chapter XLIII. The Battle of the Sand
Belt
IN Merlin’s Cave—Clarence and I and fifty-two fresh, bright,
well-educated, clean-minded young British boys. At dawn I
sent an order to the factories and to all our great works to
stop operations and re move all life to a safe distance, as
everything was going to be blown up by secret mines, “And
no telling at what moment—therefore, vacate at once.” These
people knew me, and had confidence in my word. They would
clear out without waiting to part their hair, and I could take
my own time about dating the explosion. You couldn’t hire
one of them to go back during the century, if the explosion
was still impending.

We had a week of waiting. It was not dull for me, because I

was writing all the time. During the first three days, I
finished turning my old diary into this narrative form; it only
required a chapter or so to bring it down to date. The rest of
the week I took up in writing letters to my wife. It was
always my habit to write to Sandy every day, whenever we
were separate, and now I kept up the habit for love of it, and
of her, though I couldn’t do anything with the letters, of
course, after I had written them. But it put in the time, you
see, and was almost like talking; it was almost as if I was
saying, “Sandy, if you and Hello-Central were here in the
cave, instead of only your photographs, what good times we
could have!” And then, you know, I could imagine the baby
googooing something out in reply, with its fists in its mouth
and itself stretched across its mother’s lap on its back, and
she a-laughing and admiring and worshiping, and now and
then tickling under the baby’s chin to set it cackling, and
then maybe throwing in a word of answer to me herself—and
so on and so on—well, don’t you know, I could sit there in
the cave with my pen, and keep it up, that way, by the hour
with them. Why, it was almost like having us all together
again.

I had spies out every night, of course, to get news. Every

report made things look more and more impressive. The
hosts were gathering, gathering; down all the roads and
paths of England the knights were riding, and priests rode
with them, to hearten these original Crusaders, this being
the Church’s war. All the nobilities, big and little, were on
their way, and all the gentry. This was all as was expected.
We should thin out this sort of folk to such a degree that the
people would have nothing to do but just step to the front
with their republic and—

Ah, what a donkey I was! Toward the end of the week I

began to get this large and disenchanting fact through my
head: that the mass of the nation had swung their caps and
shouted for the republic for about one day, and there an end!
The Church, the nobles, and the gentry then turned one
grand, all-disapproving frown upon them and shriveled them
into sheep! From that moment the sheep had begun to
gather to the fold—that is to say, the camps—and offer their
valueless lives and their valuable wool to the “righteous
cause.” Why, even the very men who had lately been slaves
were in the “righteous cause,” and glorifying it, praying for it,
sentimentally slabbering over it, just like all the other
commoners. Imagine such human muck as this; conceive of
this folly!

Yes, it was now “Death to the Republic!” everywhere—not a

dissenting voice. All England was marching against us! Truly,
this was more than I had bargained for.
I watched my fifty-two boys narrowly; watched their faces,
their walk, their unconscious attitudes: for all these are a
language—a language given us purposely that it may betray
us in times of emergency, when we have secrets which we
want to keep. I knew that that thought would keep saying
itself over and over again in their minds and hearts, all
England is marching against us! and ever more strenuously
imploring attention with each repetition, ever more sharply
realizing itself to their imaginations, until even in their sleep
they would find no rest from it, but hear the vague and
flitting creatures of the dreams say, All England—all England!
—is marching against you! I knew all this would happen; I
knew that ultimately the pressure would become so great
that it would compel utterance; therefore, I must be ready
with an answer at that time—an answer well chosen and
tranquilizing.

I was right. The time came. They had to speak. Poor lads, it
was pitiful to see, they were so pale, so worn, so troubled. At
first their spokesman could hardly find voice or words; but he
presently got both. This is what he said—and he put it in the
neat modern English taught him in my schools:

“We have tried to forget what we are—English boys! We have

tried to put reason before sentiment, duty before love; our
minds approve, but our hearts reproach us. While apparently
it was only the nobility, only the gentry, only the twenty-five
or thirty thousand knights left alive out of the late wars, we
were of one mind, and undisturbed by any troubling doubt;
each and every one of these fifty-two lads who stand here
before you, said, ‘They have chosen—it is their affair.’ But
think!—the matter is altered—all England is marching against
us! Oh, sir, consider!—reflect!—these people are our people,
they are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, we love them—
do not ask us to destroy our nation!”

Well, it shows the value of looking ahead, and being ready

for a thing when it happens. If I hadn’t fore seen this thing
and been fixed, that boy would have had me!—I couldn’t
have said a word. But I was fixed. I said:

“My boys, your hearts are in the right place, you have
thought the worthy thought, you have done the worthy
thing. You are English boys, you will remain English boys,
and you will keep that name unsmirched. Give yourselves no
further concern, let your minds be at peace. Consider this:
while all England is marching against us, who is in the van?
Who, by the commonest rules of war, will march in the front?
Answer me.”

“The mounted host of mailed knights.”

“True. They are 30,000 strong. Acres deep they will march.
Now, observe: none but they will ever strike the sand-belt!
Then there will be an episode! Immediately after, the civilian
multitude in the rear will retire, to meet business
engagements elsewhere. None but nobles and gentry are
knights, and none but these will remain to dance to our
music after that episode. It is absolutely true that we shall
have to fight nobody but these thirty thousand knights. Now
speak, and it shall be as you decide. Shall we avoid the
battle, retire from the field?”

“No!!!”

The shout was unanimous and hearty.

“Are you—are you—well, afraid of these thirty thousand

knights?”
That joke brought out a good laugh, the boys’ troubles
vanished away, and they went gaily to their posts. Ah, they
were a darling fifty-two! As pretty as girls, too.

I was ready for the enemy now. Let the approaching big day
come along—it would find us on deck.

The big day arrived on time. At dawn the sentry on watch in

the corral came into the cave and reported a moving black
mass under the horizon, and a faint sound which he thought
to be military music. Break fast was just ready; we sat down
and ate it.

This over, I made the boys a little speech, and then sent out
a detail to man the battery, with Clarence in command of it.

The sun rose presently and sent its unobstructed splendors

over the land, and we saw a prodigious host moving slowly
toward us, with the steady drift and aligned front of a wave
of the sea. Nearer and nearer it came, and more and more
sublimely imposing be came its aspect; yes, all England was
there, apparently. Soon we could see the innumerable
banners fluttering, and then the sun struck the sea of armor
and set it all aflash. Yes, it was a fine sight; I hadn’t ever
seen anything to beat it.

At last we could make out details. All the front ranks, no

telling how many acres deep, were horsemen—plumed
knights in armor. Suddenly we heard the blare of trumpets;
the slow walk burst into a gallop, and then—well, it was
wonderful to see! Down swept that vast horse-shoe wave—it
approached the sand-belt—my breath stood still; nearer,
nearer—the strip of green turf beyond the yellow belt grew
narrow—narrower still—became a mere ribbon in front of the
horses—then disappeared under their hoofs. Great Scott!
Why, the whole front of that host shot into the sky with a
thunder-crash, and became a whirling tempest of rags and
fragments; and along the ground lay a thick wall of smoke
that hid what was left of the multitude from our sight.

Time for the second step in the plan of campaign! I touched a

button, and shook the bones of England loose from her
spine!

In that explosion all our noble civilization-factories went up

in the air and disappeared from the earth. It was a pity, but
it was necessary. We could not afford to let the enemy turn
our own weapons against us.

Now ensued one of the dullest quarter-hours I had ever

endured. We waited in a silent solitude enclosed by our
circles of wire, and by a circle of heavy smoke outside of
these. We couldn’t see over the wall of smoke, and we
couldn’t see through it. But at last it began to shred away
lazily, and by the end of another quarter-hour the land was
clear and our curiosity was enabled to satisfy itself. No living
creature was in sight! We now perceived that additions had
been made to our defenses. The dynamite had dug a ditch
more than a hundred feet wide, all around us, and cast up an
embankment some twenty-five feet high on both borders of
it. As to destruction of life, it was amazing. Moreover, it was
beyond estimate. Of course, we could not COUNT the dead,
because they did not exist as individuals, but merely as
homogeneous protoplasm, with alloys of iron and buttons.

No life was in sight, but necessarily there must have been

some wounded in the rear ranks, who were carried off the
field under cover of the wall of smoke; there would be
sickness among the others—there always is, after an episode
like that. But there would be no reinforcements; this was the
last stand of the chivalry of England; it was all that was left
of the order, after the recent annihilating wars. So I felt quite
safe in believing that the utmost force that could for the
future be brought against us would be but small; that is, of
knights. I therefore issued a congratulatory proclamation to
my army in these words:

SOLDIERS, CHAMPIONS OF HUMAN LIBERTY AND

EQUALITY: Your General congratulates you! In the pride of
his strength and the vanity of his renown, an arrogant
enemy came against you. You were ready. The conflict was
brief; on your side, glorious. This mighty victory, having
been achieved utterly without loss, stands without example
in history. So long as the planets shall continue to move in
their orbits, the BATTLE OF THE SAND-BELT will not
perish out of the memories of men.

The Boss.

I read it well, and the applause I got was very gratifying to

me. I then wound up with these remarks:

“The war with the English nation, as a nation, is at an end.

The nation has retired from the field and the war. Before it
can be persuaded to return, war will have ceased. This
campaign is the only one that is going to be fought. It will be
brief—the briefest in history. Also the most destructive to
life, considered from the standpoint of proportion of
casualties to numbers engaged. We are done with the nation;
henceforth we deal only with the knights. English knights can
be killed, but they cannot be conquered. We know what is
before us. While one of these men remains alive, our task is
not finished, the war is not ended. We will kill them all.”
[Loud and long continued applause.]
I picketed the great embankments thrown up around our
lines by the dynamite explosion—merely a look out of a
couple of boys to announce the enemy when he should
appear again.

Next, I sent an engineer and forty men to a point just

beyond our lines on the south, to turn a mountain brook that
was there, and bring it within our lines and under our
command, arranging it in such a way that I could make
instant use of it in an emergency. The forty men were
divided into two shifts of twenty each, and were to relieve
each other every two hours. In ten hours the work was
accomplished.

It was nightfall now, and I withdrew my pickets. The one who

had had the northern outlook reported a camp in sight, but
visible with the glass only. He also reported that a few
knights had been feeling their way toward us, and had driven
some cattle across our lines, but that the knights themselves
had not come very near. That was what I had been expecting.
They were feeling us, you see; they wanted to know if we
were going to play that red terror on them again. They would
grow bolder in the night, perhaps. I believed I knew what
project they would attempt, because it was plainly the thing I
would attempt myself if I were in their places and as ignorant
as they were. I mentioned it to Clarence.

“I think you are right,” said he; “it is the obvious thing for
them to try.”

“Well, then,” I said, “if they do it they are doomed.

“Certainly.”

They won’t have the slightest show in the world.”

“Of course they won’t.”

“It’s dreadful, Clarence. It seems an awful pity.”

The thing disturbed me so that I couldn’t get any peace of

mind for thinking of it and worrying over it. So, at last, to
quiet my conscience, I framed this message to the knights:

TO THE HONORABLE THE COMMANDER OF THE

INSURGENT CHIVALRY OF ENGLAND: You fight in vain.
We know your strength—if one may call it by that name. We
know that at the utmost you cannot bring against us above
five and twenty thousand knights. Therefore, you have no
chance—none whatever. Reflect: we are well equipped, well
fortified, we number 54. Fifty-four what? Men? No, minds—
the capablest in the world; a force against which mere
animal might may no more hope to prevail than may the idle
waves of the sea hope to prevail against the granite barriers
of England. Be advised. We offer you your lives; for the sake
of your families, do not reject the gift. We offer you this
chance, and it is the last: throw down your arms; surrender
unconditionally to the Republic, and all will be forgiven.

(Signed) The Boss.

I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send it by a flag

of truce. He laughed the sarcastic laugh he was born with,
and said:

“Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever fully realize

what these nobilities are. Now let us save a little time and
trouble. Consider me the commander of the knights yonder.
Now, then, you are the flag of truce; approach and deliver
me your message, and I will give you your answer.”
I humored the idea. I came forward under an imaginary
guard of the enemy’s soldiers, produced my paper, and read
it through. For answer, Clarence struck the paper out of my
hand, pursed up a scornful lip and said with lofty disdain:

“Dismember me this animal, and return him in a basket to

the base-born knave who sent him; other answer have I
none!”

How empty is theory in presence of fact! And this was just

fact, and nothing else. It was the thing that would have
happened, there was no getting around that. I tore up the
paper and granted my mistimed sentimentalities a
permanent rest.

Then, to business. I tested the electric signals from the

gatling platform to the cave, and made sure that they were
all right; I tested and retested those which commanded the
fences—these were signals whereby I could break and renew
the electric current in each fence independently of the others
at will. I placed the brook-connection under the guard and
authority of three of my best boys, who would alternate in
two- hour watches all night and promptly obey my signal, if I
should have occasion to give it—three revolver-shots in quick
succession. Sentry-duty was discarded for the night, and the
corral left empty of life; I ordered that quiet be maintained in
the cave, and the electric lights turned down to a glimmer.

As soon as it was good and dark, I shut off the current from
all the fences, and then groped my way out to the
embankment bordering our side of the great dynamite ditch.
I crept to the top of it and lay there on the slant of the muck
to watch. But it was too dark to see anything. As for sounds,
there were none. The stillness was deathlike. True, there
were the usual night-sounds of the country—the whir of
night-birds, the buzzing of insects, the barking of distant
dogs, the mellow lowing of far-off kine—but these didn’t
seem to break the stillness, they only intensified it, and
added a grewsome melancholy to it into the bargain.

I presently gave up looking, the night shut down so black,

but I kept my ears strained to catch the least suspicious
sound, for I judged I had only to wait, and I shouldn’t be
disappointed. However, I had to wait a long time. At last I
caught what you may call in distinct glimpses of sound dulled
metallic sound. I pricked up my ears, then, and held my
breath, for this was the sort of thing I had been waiting for.
This sound thickened, and approached—from toward the
north. Presently, I heard it at my own level—the ridge-top of
the opposite embankment, a hundred feet or more away.
Then I seemed to see a row of black dots appear along that
ridge—human heads? I couldn’t tell; it mightn’t be anything
at all; you can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination
is out of focus. However, the question was soon settled. I
heard that metallic noise descending into the great ditch. It
augmented fast, it spread all along, and it unmistakably
furnished me this fact: an armed host was taking up its
quarters in the ditch. Yes, these people were arranging a
little surprise party for us. We could expect entertainment
about dawn, possibly earlier.

I groped my way back to the corral now; I had seen enough.

I went to the platform and signaled to turn the current on to
the two inner fences. Then I went into the cave, and found
everything satisfactory there—nobody awake but the
working-watch. I woke Clarence and told him the great ditch
was filling up with men, and that I believed all the knights
were coming for us in a body. It was my notion that as soon
as dawn approached we could expect the ditch’s ambuscaded
thousands to swarm up over the embankment and make an
assault, and be followed immediately by the rest of their
army.

Clarence said:

“They will be wanting to send a scout or two in the dark to

make preliminary observations. Why not take the lightning
off the outer fences, and give them a chance?”

“I’ve already done it, Clarence. Did you ever know me to be

inhospitable?”

“No, you are a good heart. I want to go and—”

“Be a reception committee? I will go, too.”

We crossed the corral and lay down together between the

two inside fences. Even the dim light of the cave had
disordered our eyesight somewhat, but the focus straightway
began to regulate itself and soon it was adjusted for present
circumstances. We had had to feel our way before, but we
could make out to see the fence posts now. We started a
whispered conversation, but suddenly Clarence broke off and
said:

“What is that?”

“What is what?”

“That thing yonder.”

“What thing—where?”

“There beyond you a little piece—dark some thing—a dull

shape of some kind—against the second fence.”
I gazed and he gazed. I said:

“Could it be a man, Clarence?”

“No, I think not. If you notice, it looks a lit—why, it IS a

man!—leaning on the fence.”

“I certainly believe it is; let us go and see.”

We crept along on our hands and knees until we were pretty

close, and then looked up. Yes, it was a man—a dim great
figure in armor, standing erect, with both hands on the upper
wire—and, of course, there was a smell of burning flesh. Poor
fellow, dead as a door-nail, and never knew what hurt him.
He stood there like a statue—no motion about him, except
that his plumes swished about a little in the night wind. We
rose up and looked in through the bars of his visor, but
couldn’t make out whether we knew him or not—features too
dim and shadowed.

We heard muffled sounds approaching, and we sank down to

the ground where we were. We made out another knight
vaguely; he was coming very stealthily, and feeling his way.
He was near enough now for us to see him put out a hand,
find an upper wire, then bend and step under it and over the
lower one. Now he arrived at the first knight—and started
slightly when he discovered him. He stood a moment—no
doubt wondering why the other one didn’t move on; then he
said, in a low voice, “Why dreamest thou here, good Sir Mar
—” then he laid his hand on the corpse’s shoulder—and just
uttered a little soft moan and sunk down dead. Killed by a
dead man, you see—killed by a dead friend, in fact. There
was something awful about it.

These early birds came scattering along after each other,

about one every five minutes in our vicinity, during half an
hour. They brought no armor of offense but their swords; as
a rule, they carried the sword ready in the hand, and put it
forward and found the wires with it. We would now and then
see a blue spark when the knight that caused it was so far
away as to be invisible to us; but we knew what had
happened, all the same; poor fellow, he had touched a
charged wire with his sword and been elected. We had brief
intervals of grim stillness, interrupted with piteous regularity
by the clash made by the falling of an iron-clad; and this sort
of thing was going on, right along, and was very creepy there
in the dark and lonesomeness.

We concluded to make a tour between the inner fences. We

elected to walk upright, for convenience’s sake; we argued
that if discerned, we should be taken for friends rather than
enemies, and in any case we should be out of reach of
swords, and these gentry did not seem to have any spears
along. Well, it was a curious trip. Everywhere dead men were
lying outside the second fence—not plainly visible, but still
visible; and we counted fifteen of those pathetic statues—
dead knights standing with their hands on the upper wire.

One thing seemed to be sufficiently demonstrated: our

current was so tremendous that it killed before the victim
could cry out. Pretty soon we detected a muffled and heavy
sound, and next moment we guessed what it was. It was a
surprise in force coming! whispered Clarence to go and wake
the army, and notify it to wait in silence in the cave for
further orders. He was soon back, and we stood by the inner
fence and watched the silent lightning do its awful work upon
that swarming host. One could make out but little of detail;
but he could note that a black mass was piling itself up
beyond the second fence. That swelling bulk was dead men!
Our camp was enclosed with a solid wall of the dead—a
bulwark, a breastwork, of corpses, you may say. One terrible
thing about this thing was the absence of human voices;
there were no cheers, no war cries; being intent upon a
surprise, these men moved as noiselessly as they could; and
always when the front rank was near enough to their goal to
make it proper for them to begin to get a shout ready, of
course they struck the fatal line and went down without
testifying.

I sent a current through the third fence now; and almost

immediately through the fourth and fifth, so quickly were the
gaps filled up. I believed the time was come now for my
climax; I believed that that whole army was in our trap.
Anyway, it was high time to find out. So I touched a button
and set fifty electric suns aflame on the top of our precipice.

Land, what a sight! We were enclosed in three walls of dead

men! All the other fences were pretty nearly filled with the
living, who were stealthily working their way forward
through the wires. The sudden glare paralyzed this host,
petrified them, you may say, with astonishment; there was
just one instant for me to utilize their immobility in, and I
didn’t lose the chance. You see, in another instant they would
have recovered their faculties, then they’d have burst into a
cheer and made a rush, and my wires would have gone down
before it; but that lost instant lost them their opportunity
forever; while even that slight fragment of time was still
unspent, I shot the current through all the fences and struck
the whole host dead in their tracks! There was a groan you
could hear! It voiced the death-pang of eleven thousand
men. It swelled out on the night with awful pathos.

A glance showed that the rest of the enemy—perhaps ten

thousand strong—were between us and the encircling ditch,
and pressing forward to the assault. Consequently we had
them all! and had them past help. Time for the last act of the
tragedy. I fired the three appointed revolver shots—which
meant:

“Turn on the water!”

There was a sudden rush and roar, and in a minute the

mountain brook was raging through the big ditch and
creating a river a hundred feet wide and twenty- five deep.

“Stand to your guns, men! Open fire!”

The thirteen gatlings began to vomit death into the fated ten
thousand. They halted, they stood their ground a moment
against that withering deluge of fire, then they broke, faced
about and swept toward the ditch like chaff before a gale. A
full fourth part of their force never reached the top of the
lofty embankment; the three-fourths reached it and plunged
over—to death by drowning.

Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire, armed

resistance was totally annihilated, the campaign was ended,
we fifty-four were masters of England. Twenty-five thousand
men lay dead around us.

But how treacherous is fortune! In a little while—say an hour

—happened a thing, by my own fault, which—but I have no
heart to write that. Let the record end here.
Chapter XLIV. A Postscript by Clarence
I, CLARENCE, must write it for him. He proposed that we
two go out and see if any help could be accorded the
wounded. I was strenuous against the project. I said that if
there were many, we could do but little for them; and it
would not be wise for us to trust ourselves among them,
anyway. But he could seldom be turned from a purpose once
formed; so we shut off the electric current from the fences,
took an escort along, climbed over the enclosing ramparts of
dead knights, and moved out upon the field. The first
wounded mall who appealed for help was sitting with his back
against a dead comrade. When The Boss bent over him and
spoke to him, the man recognized him and stabbed him. That
knight was Sir Meliagraunce, as I found out by tearing off his
helmet. He will not ask for help any more.

We carried The Boss to the cave and gave his wound, which
was not very serious, the best care we could. In this service
we had the help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was
disguised as a woman, and appeared to be a simple old
peasant good wife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face
and smooth shaven, he had appeared a few days after The
Boss was hurt and offered to cook for us, saying her people
had gone off to join certain new camps which the enemy
were forming, and that she was starving. The Boss had been
getting along very well, and had amused himself with
finishing up his record.

We were glad to have this woman, for we were short handed.

We were in a trap, you see—a trap of our own making. If we
stayed where we were, our dead would kill us; if we moved
out of our defenses, we should no longer be invincible. We
had conquered; in turn we were conquered. The Boss
recognized this; we all recognized it. If we could go to one of
those new camps and patch up some kind of terms with the
enemy—yes, but The Boss could not go, and neither could I,
for I was among the first that were made sick by the
poisonous air bred by those dead thousands. Others were
taken down, and still others. To-morrow—

To-morrow. It is here. And with it the end. About midnight I

awoke, and saw that hag making curious passes in the air
about The Boss’s head and face, and wondered what it
meant. Everybody but the dynamo-watch lay steeped in
sleep; there was no sound. The woman ceased from her
mysterious foolery, and started tip-toeing toward the door. I
called out:

“Stop! What have you been doing?”

She halted, and said with an accent of malicious satisfaction:

“Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! These others are

perishing—you also. Ye shall all die in this place—every one
—except him. He sleepeth now—and shall sleep thirteen
centuries. I am Merlin!”

Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him that he

reeled about like a drunken man, and presently fetched up
against one of our wires. His mouth is spread open yet;
apparently he is still laughing. I suppose the face will retain
that petrified laugh until the corpse turns to dust.

The Boss has never stirred—sleeps like a stone. If he does

not wake to-day we shall understand what kind of a sleep it
is, and his body will then be borne to a place in one of the
remote recesses of the cave where none will ever find it to
desecrate it. As for the rest of us—well, it is agreed that if
any one of us ever escapes alive from this place, he will write
the fact here, and loyally hide this Manuscript with The Boss,
our dear good chief, whose property it is, be he alive or dead.

The End of the Manuscript

Final P.S. by M.T.

THE dawn was come when I laid the Manuscript aside. The
rain had almost ceased, the world was gray and sad, the
exhausted storm was sighing and sobbing itself to rest. I
went to the stranger’s room, and listened at his door, which
was slightly ajar. I could hear his voice, and so I knocked.
There was no answer, but I still heard the voice. I peeped in.
The man lay on his back in bed, talking brokenly but with
spirit, and punctuating with his arms, which he thrashed
about, restlessly, as sick people do in delirium. I slipped in
softly and bent over him. His mutterings and ejaculations
went on. I spoke—merely a word, to call his attention. His
glassy eyes and his ashy face were alight in an instant with
pleasure, gratitude, gladness, welcome:

“Oh, Sandy, you are come at last—how I have longed for

you! Sit by me—do not leave me—never leave me again,
Sandy, never again. Where is your hand?—give it me, dear,
let me hold it—there—now all is well, all is peace, and I am
happy again—we are happy again, isn’t it so, Sandy? You are
so dim, so vague, you are but a mist, a cloud, but you are
here, and that is blessedness sufficient; and I have your
hand; don’t take it away—it is for only a little while, I shall
not require it long... Was that the child... Hello-Central... she
doesn’t answer. Asleep, perhaps? Bring her when she wakes,
and let me touch her hands, her face, her hair, and tell her
good-bye... Sandy! Yes, you are there. I lost myself a
moment, and I thought you were gone... Have I been sick
long? It must be so; it seems months to me. And such
dreams! such strange and awful dreams, Sandy! Dreams that
were as real as reality—delirium, of course, but so real! Why,
I thought the king was dead, I thought you were in Gaul and
couldn’t get home, I thought there was a revolution; in the
fantastic frenzy of these dreams, I thought that Clarence and
I and a handful of my cadets fought and exterminated the
whole chivalry of England! But even that was not the
strangest. I seemed to be a creature out of a remote unborn
age, centuries hence, and even THAT was as real as the rest!
Yes, I seemed to have flown back out of that age into this of
ours, and then forward to it again, and was set down, a
stranger and forlorn in that strange England, with an abyss
of thirteen centuries yawning between me and you! between
me and my home and my friends! between me and all that is
dear to me, all that could make life worth the living! It was
awful—awfuler than you can ever imagine, Sandy. Ah, watch
by me, Sandy—stay by me every moment—don’t let me go
out of my mind again; death is nothing, let it come, but not
with those dreams, not with the torture of those hideous
dreams—I cannot endure that again... Sandy?...”

He lay muttering incoherently some little time; then for a

time he lay silent, and apparently sinking away toward
death. Presently his fingers began to pick busily at the
coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his end was at hand
with the first suggestion of the death-rattle in his throat he
started up slightly, and seemed to listen: then he said:

“A bugle?... It is the king! The drawbridge, there! Man the

battlements!—turn out the—”

He was getting up his last “effect”; but he never finished it.